Productive Monday

[blueether]

Went out to the stream I normally visit on the side of pirongia to get some river sand and rocks for a 2x1x1 tank for my soon to hatch Cran's fry and had a rummage around in stream and hey-presto 10m upstream from where I caught my last torrent fish a year ago I get another, with a large koura under the same rock:

Both new and old together (new one is the darker one):

Then that night I went out to see if I could get some more older whitebait, and to see if they had got that far yet, in the hope that I would get a banded or two to grow. I first went down to a small creek ~1/2m wide to 1m wide pools and what do I find but 4 or 5 [EDIT]banded Giant* Kokopu the biggest looked to be well over 200mm (maybe giant kokopu?). The smallest one I caught and he is now swimming around with the adult inanga in the 400lt tank. The only problem that it has is it looks as if the large eel that was in the same pool had eaten 2/3rds of his tail. He (?) is slightly smaller than the largest 2 or 3 of the inanga.

*thanks Stella for the conformation, the more pics I looked at the more I was thinking Giant Kokopu

[nativelover]

has diffrent markings to my bandeds but what a great find

[Mikey]

Nice work on the productive night.

Something has really had a go at its tail as you say... image shows it well!

Ermmmm, I'm looking at the photos of the Kokopu... you sure that is a banded? I'm not convinced... I've just jumped onto an image search of the different types of kokopu, and to me it doesn't seem right for a banded? Perhaps it is a banded with some interesting markings?

I guess we wait for Stella to arrive

[zuri08]

hey guys i live in drury south auckland and there is alot of streams/creeks around me how do u think i should go about catching some fish from these i havent seen any during the day do they only come out at night.im talking about natives obviously

[blueether]

Nice work on the productive night.

Something has really had a go at its tail as you say... image shows it well!

Ermmmm, I'm looking at the photos of the Kokopu... you sure that is a banded? I'm not convinced... I've just jumped onto an image search of the different types of kokopu, and to me it doesn't seem right for a banded? Perhaps it is a banded with some interesting markings?

I guess we wait for Stella to arrive

I wondered if it was a giant as well, but the bands do go all the way up and I dont know if they are 'random' enough for a giant.

I did think that the pattern was too deep/3D for a banded.

It was caught some 150km from the sea, but at a low elevation ~60m. I know there is a small population of giants a bit further down the waipa in a small stream.

hey guys i live in drury south auckland and there is alot of streams/creeks around me how do u think i should go about catching some fish from these i havent seen any during the day do they only come out at night.im talking about natives obviously

Grab a torch, net and bucket and see what you can find?

[Mikey]

Grab a torch, net and bucket and see what you can find?

Agreed... good luck seeing any natives during the day.... I am always looking into streams and stuff when I'm out walking the dog during the day, and only ever seen the odd splash and that is about it.

Go out at night, take a torch and then you will see just how much life there is in our streams.. I haven't gone out with nets yet (will be going out in next few weeks to get a Koura though), but I have gone out with a camera:

http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=50515

Have fun!

[cichlidcentral]

I wondered if it was a giant as well, but the bands do go all the way up and I dont know if they are 'random' enough for a giant.

I did think that the pattern was too deep/3D for a banded.

It was caught some 150km from the sea, but at a low elevation ~60m. I know there is a small population of giants a bit further down the waipa in a small stream.

they look far to circular compared to normal banded bands, remembering if it is a giant, it still has fair bit of growing to do, which may result in the pattern becoming less uniform? just a thought :dunno:

but I'm putting my money on Giant :spop:

(or some crazy hybrid between the two )

[blueether]

This is the closest kokopu I could find and that is labled as a giant kokopu:

This banded has very broken patterning:

The population of giants that I know of further down the Waipa is 23km in as the crow flies so I guess that there could be giants this far inland (the article that I saw them mentioned in suggested that that population could be non-diadromous)

[Stella]

Yes, definitely a giant kokopu

Giants change quite a lot when they are small, there are several stages that their patterning goes through. The below point are how I tell them apart:

Giants start out with a random |.|..|.|. pattern along the lateral line. Over time they lengthen vertically. Then the lines start to break up into spots, and eventually more spots seem to grow through from deep within the skin. Tis a beautiful transformation to watch.

Banded on the other hand start with sort of short vertical *narrow* dashes along the side ||||||| Like with the giant they elongate at a certain stage, but on the banded they get even longer. As they get bigger the stripes tend to congregate in the tail area and fade out elsewhere.

One trick with kokopu is to look at the *edge* of the stripes:

Giant: clear sharp edge all the way around the spots/stripes. Does not get blurry toward the top and bottom.

Banded: stripes are clear along the centre of the body and fade out top and bottom

Shortjaw: at around 7-10cm long they have vertical stripes. First they are amber and later they become brown, before fading out and being replaced by the adult mottling. The main clue with these stripes is that they have a blurry edge *all the way around* the stripe. (Yes the jaw is the easier indicator, but I find they are often hard to roll over enough to see the jaw clearly.)

Nice tail bite. Looks like it is growing back well though. Amazingly robust little fish, they heal so fast!

[Mikey]

I guess all our suspicions have been confirmed then... it's a Giant. Looks like you might need to be setting up another tank later down the track Blueether... or else the Giant will just nom everything else.

And Stella... it is awesome how you can explain the patterns on a fish using text characters |..||.|.||..

Nice work.

[blueether]

Yes, definitely a giant kokopu

Thanks for that, I was more and more leaning that way. The 'spots' dont really show up under my dim lights but do show under flash, so much so that I hadn't noticed them until photographed then looked for them.

I'm surprised, and glad, that there is a population of giants there, the spring fed creek is less than 300m long, has had cattle in it (only fenced on one side), has silt runoff in it from the two adjacent maze fields and last year suffered from over-spray killing all the cress and weeds in it.

Nice tail bite. Looks like it is growing back well though. Amazingly robust little fish, they heal so fast!

It is growing back well, looks like the bite removed the tail almost all the way to the end of the rays.

I guess all our suspicions have been confirmed then... it's a Giant. Looks like you might need to be setting up another tank later down the track Blueether... or else the Giant will just nom everything else.

He (most of my fish get called 'he' if the sex is undetermined) has already chased a few of the small 1yr old Cran's bullies. How big do you thing is too big for a 4x2x4 ft tank? I was thinking that the tank would be ok for two banded and 1/2 a dozen or so inanga.

[blueether]

Did a good survey of this little creek during the week by spotlight.

In 200m I saw at least 9 kokopu, most were giants by the look.

All were about the 80-100mm mark (so 1 yr old? stella?)

I didn't see the large one I saw the other week, but I did also see 3 large eels (longfin?) and a smaller less heavyset one (shortfin?), 3 brown trout fry at about 40-50mm and a few koura.

[cichlidcentral]

Brown trout sharing an ecosystem with Giants???

I thought that was a rare occurrence, unless trout are new additions? :-?

[Mazonic]

Brown trout sharing an ecosystem with Giants???

I thought that was a rare occurrence, unless trout are new additions? :-?

cichlidcentral trout fishing trip after exams? to help protect the native fishys? :slfg:

[cichlidcentral]

cichlidcentral trout fishing trip after exams? to help protect the native fishys? :slfg:

[blueether]

The trout were only very small

The stream that this creek drains into was part of a long term study in the late 80's

They found high numbers of common and very few Cran's or redfin

- I have found about 60/40 common/Cran's and no redfin bullies

[Edit] remembered the wrong stream for this one, they found no large galaxiids in the stream I was at:

They found some shortjaw kokopu and a few bandeds no galaxiids

- I have found these giants

They found lots of torrent fish

- Still atleast some there, hard to spotlight these guys

They also found Rainbow and Brown trout and both our eels

- All still there

[Stella]

Brown trout sharing an ecosystem with Giants???

I thought that was a rare occurrence, unless trout are new additions? :-?

I don't think it is rare. Large kokopu would chomp trout and vise versa. So far it is really only the galaxiid species with small adults or lake-rearing species that seem to get really hammered by trout.

Blueether, the authors of that study would probably be interested to hear what you are finding! Drop them an email.

[cichlidcentral]

I don't think it is rare. Large kokopu would chomp trout and vise versa. So far it is really only the galaxiid species with small adults or lake-rearing species that seem to get really hammered by trout.

McDowall often referred to their relationship being non-sustainable it in several texts didn't he?

eg-

"The giant kokopu appears not to be compatible with brown trout and tends to be found only where trout are rare or absent"- R.M.McDowall (A Natural History and Guide;1990)

Though in saying that, I cant think of any other Authors/studies to back that up....

[blueether]

Edited my above post as I unforgot incorrectly :-?

[blueether]

An update on how Mr Homer the giant kokopu is doing with a part tail. The tail is growing well as is the fish in general. He started out maybe 10mm shorter than the largest inanga and in the last 40 odd days has out grown them by about 10mm or more.

As of Tue Oct 25, 2011:

As of Sun Dec 4, 2011:

Edit: I see that the pattern is developing and starting to break up a little, really looks more like a giant kokopu now

[Stella]

Interesting, thanks for the update!

ooh look at those little doughnut patterns forming!! He/she will be beautiful -SQUEEE!

(I just got back from visiting my National Trout Centre native aquaria again today, was in fishy heaven watching the kokopu cruising around !drool: )

[nativelover]

looking good cant wait till my bandeds get to a solid size. do you have any kokopu stella?

[Stella]

No, sadly I don't. I thought I had a banded whitebait for a while, but realised it was an inanga with drab markings due to the surroundings.

I definitely want another, just one.

At the moment I just seem to be making enormous to-die-for public kokopu aquaria, that others pay for and maintain

[blueether]

No, sadly I don't. I thought I had a banded whitebait for a while, but realised it was an inanga with drab markings due to the surroundings.

I definitely want another, just one.

Sad that you dont have any kokopu of your own atm, just have to live vicariously.

At the moment I just seem to be making enormous to-die-for public kokopu aquaria, that others pay for and maintain

When are you making mine? :digH:

[nativelover]

speaking of the amazing tanks who makes the backgrounds i would love one for my 4 footer?