Collecting giant Fresh water Pipe fish

[northboy]

Hi All

The wet season FINALY started on Saturday morning early, so now that we have had enough rain to realy stir things up, I decided it was time to look for the big Fresh water Pipe fish.

Boat loaded, my self and a mad mate of mine from Melbourne went to the Mulgrave river to have a look around, when we arrived the water was dirty, strange because when we crossed the river near home it was clear, how ever there was 180mm of rain in one of the lower tributary's Behna ck.

There was a break in the rain in the arvo that is why we decided to go. Boat in the river, not a place to be with out a boat, big Crocs, mind you the Boat is only 3.2mts so there is lots of Flat Dog's Bigger. Fire up the electric out board and off we go, the river has a uneasy feel about it because of the rain and clouds as well as the water colour, being clear here normally it is a strange look for a beautiful river.

To cut a long story short from a short afternoon LOL, we were out for about 1 hour before it bucketed down, when we got back to the bush ramp there was 30mm of water in the bottom of the boat from rain.

We did get a pair of Pipe fish and C. indistincta, C. gracilirostris, C. serratirostris and some big Neritina snails.

Bob

[BlueBolts]

Beautiful scenery. 180mm of rain, that incredible.

[tangfreak]

Can u put photos up or shrimp and pipe fish looks very interesting and fun .i gather u are in aussie by the way your mate came up from melbourne .lucky buggers

[Triggs]

That's a beautiful view from the river.

Thanks for sharing

[mickeyG]

That 5th pic is awesome bob, the clouds are letting you know they have another 180mm to go haha

The whole 'crocs are bigger then the boat' thing is crazy sh.t bob crazy sh.t

[Baccus]

Good to see you got a couple of pipe fish, are they really pretty like some of the marine ones or more tones of brown? I have only seen one pipe fish in the wild he(?) was a sweet little guy not even half the size of the ones you caught cruising about in South Trees Creek near Tannum Sands.

Seriously you know how to make so many people literally green with envy....even with the large bitey lizards.

Just as well I grew up in Arnham Land so if I ever get to Cairns and get to go shrimp hunting I know what I am dealing with in the croc stakes.

Love the picture of the low cloud over the river.... just wish your rain would travel a bit further south.

[lachie1998]

Thanks for another great write up Bob.

Can you get some pics of the pipe fish when they are in a tank? What are they like to breed? do there fry need brackish or salt water?

[wayne6442]

Outstanding Bob, love the pictures. There is a large salt water pipe fish who has made his place at the stern of my boat. He is fairly tame and will just about let me pat him, very inquisitive. It's nice to have him around Wayne

[northboy]

Tang what mate? Gary? he was in the Boat with me and is taking the Pipes back to Melbourne.

If you look hard at the bottom photo of the Pipes you can see a dark line, that is the Male caring eggs under his belly, he is an open pouch brooder with smaller eggs than the other Giants we get in other spots.

I am going back to get a Trio for my self to breed so I will get some photos to add then, they are very pretty lots of red and green.

Sorry about the photos we were under a bridge sheltering from the rain that caught us out LOL.

Any one wanting a challenge and has lots of cull shrimp, PIPES are top and smart fish.

We also did not take any fishing rods and wouldn't you know it the Big fish were going OFF

Bob

[tangfreak]

what i ment to say can we see the shrimp and pipe fish from the side (from a tank veiw ) cheers mike

[northboy]

Cant get any side one of the Pipes they are on there way to Melbourne, the Shrimp I will do, but they are only C. gracilirostris/ Red noses and C. indistincta (normal colour not Yellows)

My biggest problem at the moment is tank space while I am waiting on the fish house to be built and now that wont be until after the wet, so most things go into ponds for now.

It is my intention to do a video of these guys breeding, that could take a long to to do and you can be assured I will share it here first.

Bob

[Baccus]

In a well matured overflowing tank of cherry shrimp I can imagine that pipe fish would be a great help. I had a few hundred red cherrys that where over running a couple of my tanks and in desperation I put them in my goldfish pond. Turns out my goldies think cherry shrimp are just the best snack going LOL.

I know its advised that pipe fish be kept in species only tanks, but I wonder how they would go with peaceful corydoras, and a few harvey creek blues eyes?

Looking forwards to seeing the pictures and hope you can get them to breed. For trio I am guessing you would be best off with 2 males and one female, seeing as how in seahorses some females keep two males for breeding while others are strictly one partner.

[northboy]

As the Males carry the eggs yep 2 male to 1 female, as for being by them selves? Why I keep them with all sorts of things, I think the issue would be getting food to them, besides I never take notice of what is recommended, I try all sorts of things to see if they work and what the do OS realy perplexes me.

If you have an excess of Cherries you should try some, they are rewarding and with persistence they take frozen Brine shrimp and Daphne, please do not take notice of the usual rule that is applyed to them, that they are brackish as they are not, they do occur in the upper fresh water tidal zone only because that is where the right sized food is, small shrimp and fish.

Adults of all species take new borne Guppies and any live food around that size.

At the moment we have 7 fresh water species up here and no doubt more to come.

I guess I will have to make it my mission to educate every one on our northern treasures and unknown aquatic animals.

Bob

[Baccus]

I must admit I often throw standard recommendatons to the wind ;), that is why I have Borneo Suckers living quite happily in my 4ft cory tank. The flow in the tank is nothing like a river/ stream system and my Borneo's tend to avoid strong flows of water anyway, plus the temperatures that tank gets to in summer is well past what they are supposed to tolerate. But yet these guys have powered through two extreme summers. And as for keeping khuli loaches with shrimp, yep not a problem, the only time I have seen a loach try to eat a shrimp it had already died from natural causes.

Its a shame I can't tell early on what colour my guppy fry are going to be (our desired strain of blue or some other colour we aren't planning on ) otherwise these guys would be great for cleaning up unwanted guppies.

What size shrimp can the pipefish manage? I am guessing typhus would be out of reach for them (well large females any way), and almost all macrobracahium. Can they tackle a full grown cherry or more juvi sized? I am guessing glass shrimp would be their main food, or larval shrimp of our brackish requiring shrimp.

[northboy]

The big ones (will grow up to 30cm) will take a nearly full grown Cherry and the other smaller species (grow up to 15cm) will take 1/4 grown cherry's.

I have them eating frozen food to.

There is 4 species I catch regularly and 2 every now and then, 2 of them I have breed, when the fish house is built I will register 5 of the species and get to breeding them seriously, along with Red lined Puffers, the Daintree fresh water sole, fresh water Damsels and stuff like that.

Bob