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Tank with Native NZ Fish on T/M.


scoobyjene

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A chiller is an expensive device to keep the water temperature down to levels the fish can cope with. In this case, I imagine 18C maximum.

Inanga are whitebait and are legal if caught during the whitebaiting season. My son used to have a group of them in a 2ft tank. Very pretty fish with subtle colouring that caught the light nicely.

Banded kokopu (Galaxias fasciatus), not kokapu, grow over 20cm. Juveniles are good climbers and can escape from buckets by wriggling up the sides :wink:

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As I understand it white bait aren't a type of fish but the young of a number of different types, therefore size would depend on what type you got. I was told that there are 4 that are most common, I can only remember two, which are Inanga and trout.

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Whitebait is made up of 5 different species of the Galaxiids; most common being inanga (G maculatus) then koaro (G brevipinnis), banded kokopu (G fasciatus), shortjaw kokopu (G postvectis) and giant kokopu (G argentius)

Inanga grow to 9cm, koaro 18cm, banded and shortjawed kokopu 20cm, and the giant kokopu (also known as maori trout) grows up to 50cm

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If you do get the tank I would recommend a couple of changes. The Banded Kokopu would be much happier with some sort of floating plant or shelter near the surface to hide under. They don't like bright light. This tank is a bit bare for them, thats why their not showing in the pic - they are probably trying to jam themselves under a rock! Their natural habitat is near the surface under overhanging banks, logs etc. They pick up on insect vibrations on the water surface so normally stay at the top area of the pool (want to spot a wild BK? throw 5mm long bits of stick into a pool in a shaded stream).

The Inanga are fine, more of a open water fish then the Kokopu. But despite the seller saying that the BK won't out grow the tank I think they will. They are also very stong fish and may cause some damage to themselves if they panic in this small tank. Be prepared to transfer them to a larger tank in the future. Another negative for the small tank is that it will have greater tempature swings then a large tank.

Ask if they have been trained to eat dried food - if from the wild the BK may only feed on live food.

Despite all this natives are great fish. Very intelligent. For a cheap chiller see the DIY section - A Chilling Experiment. Not yet 100% proven yet but I'm confident.

Take a look at http://www.niwa.cri.nz/rc/freshwater/fishatlas/fishFinder.htm

and

http://www.nzfreshwater.org/index_main.html

for more info on natives.

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