Natives in Christchurch

[CodKing]

Hey all!

I'm living in Christchurch and thinking about filling my under-construction tank with natives. I've been doing a little bit of scouting, sad to see the Styx river by marshlands bridge has turned black and oily I remember eeling and canoeing in there as a kid. Didn't see much life in there at all, does anyone have any idea of good spots to find plants/fish/crays/shrimp?

I figure I should go inland, away from the city and maybe north where it gets a bit rockier but then I thought I might have the problem of eutrophicated water ways around farms.

If anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them! Anything in or around Christchurch and I'm looking for everything, stones, gravel, plants, driftwood, fish etc.

Thanx!

PS, do we have any native freshwater bivalves? I've got a couple of unknowns employed as filtration units in my small tank and they are doing a great job!

[phoenix44]

Hi and welcome!

Although I did LOL at your choice of thread title! :lol:

[spoon]

nows proabaly not a good time for collecting due to the rain and sediment in the rivers. i have seen inanga and 1 kokapu of some description in our creek as well as small bullies and a giant bully viewtopic.php?f=41&t=34046&hilit=giant+bully

i havent seen any fish in the creek for a few months now only eels. i think i would be more inclined to try some of the better trout fishing rivers as where trout flourish natives will also(due to better water quality) perhaps the otakaikino river or the L2 out in selwyn

[CodKing]

Excellent, thanks

(Glad someone got the title, saw a giggle in another post so thought I'd add one )

[Stella]

Hi there,

There are several native freshwater bivalves.

The freshwater mussel for starters! Also several much smaller species in the Sphaeridae family, and I think some other bigger ones....

They do make good biofilters BUT:

The native freshwater mussels are a threatened species, suffering severe recruitment failure and degradation of adult habitat.

Aside from that it is VERY difficult to keep them in aquaria without slowly starving them to death. They filter massive amounts of organic matter from the water and keeping them in a nice clean tank just doesn't have enough. I knew a girl doing her master's thesis on mussels and was growing vat after vat of green water for them and still struggling to keep them ok.

However the tiny Sphaerids (also pea mussels, pea clams, fingernail mussels, fingernail clams etc) can reproduce in captivity, and have a life cycle of about a year, so they can potentially create a sustainable colony based on the actual food supply in your tank.

In addition to what Spoon said, winter is not great for finding natives as they tend to go to ground a bit and be less active. And good point about the trout rivers, or at least the smaller tributaries of those rivers.

What sort of natives do you have and are you after?

[CodKing]

At this stage I have not a one! (maybe the two mussels I have)

My tank is still a work in progress, I have 90% of the materials needed just trying to source one more piece of glass. I want to be sure I can build an appropriate habitat. I'm thinking a trip to the West Coast is probably my best bet, i.e., getting away from crusty waterways. I'm not too picky about what goes in the tank, something active would be nice!

So there are smaller clams and mussels, how hard are these to get a hold of?

What about keeping Flatworms and the likes? That probably sounds a little odd, would they just hide constantly or get eaten by the fishes? I would like to keep the habitat as complete as I can and wouldn't mind keeping propagation tanks to sustain populations if they were part of the food chain. The only issue I see is keeping everyone cool in the summer time. A beer fridge and a bunch of pumps I'm thinking would do the trick yeah?

So you think I am slowly killing Dead and Doug? (mussels named through initial activity )

[Stella]

I suggest you focus in on a theme for the tank. Having things themed really helps making it cohesive and easier to manage. Either pick a habitat type and choose the 'decor' etc and species based on that, or pick a core species or two, and build the rest based on what suits them.

Active fish: your best bet are bullies. Really fascinating to watch, always up to something. Several different species.

Crayfish are equally fascinating, but you need to be careful that they are smaller than the bullies...

Inanga or smelt are a nice schooling fish, but lose that if the tank is small. Good thing with them is they almost never hide, unlike all the others.

Kokopu are active when small but tend to become lurkers later. Still an interesting fish though.

Torrentfish and koaro are awesome in a fast-flowing tank, but can be a bit like having a tank full of rocks most of the time.

The tiny mussels are pretty common in silty farm streams and boggy forest areas. I have only seen them myself in farm water troughs. They are pretty fragile so wouldn't go well in a gravel-bottomed tank. I am fascinated by them but need to find a decent source. Would be great to be able to share them around other keepers!

Flatworms.... that sounds interesting! Not sure what you mean but... kewl! Planaria perhaps?

Certainly an interesting thing trying to create an aquarium with various other critters adding to the ecosystem. I used to have a self-sustaining population of native snail living in the gravel of one tank. Never saw them just sucked them up when doing water changes.

Keeping them cool over summer is a problem, though probably less so for you in the South Island ;P

Depending on the size of tank and general situation you might be able to get away with fans aimed at the water surface (evaporative cooling). Beer fridges etc are often talked about in DIY articles, but not sure how effective they really are.

Sorry, yes, Dead and Doug are probably somewhat hungry.

[CodKing]

I've stuck gold this evening and come accross some excellent and very large bits of safety glass! This will make my tank layout much larger (around 1200x450x600). I assume the high specific heat of water means, more water= more stable temp? Maximum room temp in summer this year was 24 but I'm sure I could rearrange to find a cooler spot. But I think to be on the safe side I'll get a little fridge setup on standby. I have DIYed one up before for a computer watercooling system and as long as the cooling coil is long enough, it's supprising how well it works. I had a little $20 12V fridge running off a computer power supply that I got for free and managed to dribble out about 20L/hr of pretty chilly water. Not sure how cold it actually was but must have been about 10-15C

I've made plans to go out this weekend to the rurals. From your advice I'm going to find a slice of our heaven and get a snapshot of it with the intent to recreate it.

If anyone is interested I'll get a diary up and running so we can all learn from my mistakes!

Thank you so much for all your advice so far, I'm sure I'll need to call on your expertise in the months ahead!! Hopefully I'm ready for fish come summer time!

(Man, I'm starting to get impatient!! fish.... fish... fish.. fish. )