MEET AN AQUARIST SERIES: NEW ZEALAND
Part Two: Colin Clarke and Ivan Mockford

By Howard Norfolk
Aquarticles.com

COLIN CLARKE

Colin Clarke is well known in fishy circles in the South Island of New Zealand, particularly in the City of Dunedin, where he is Secretary of the thriving Dunedin Aquarium and Pond Society.

Colin grew up in the East End of London, England, and started keeping fish at the age of eight. He lived in the seaside resort of Ramsgate for a while, where he bred koi in the early days when koi were first made popularly available. He moved to New Zealand fifteen years ago, and found that in New Zealand koi cannot legally be kept, because of problems they cause when released into the wild. But he soon discovered an interest in other kinds of fish…

  Colin's largest aquarium

CLICK ON PHOTOS FOR ENLARGEMENT, THEN GO "BACK"

I met him at his small house in the suburb of Mosgiel, where I was shown aquariums in nearly every room.

We first went to his garage. Squeezed in beside piles of spare tyres, a car he is working on, and some budgerigars (which he used to breed), are two large community aquariums, each of about 600 litres*. They are well planted, and are landscaped with impressively large pieces of driftwood that Colin collected from beaches on the West Coast. As is normal in New Zealand, these large tanks are all glass, being held together by silicone only, without a metal frame. Because of their size they have bracing bars of glass inside around the top edge, which also serve as resting places for the glass tops. They were made by a friend, and Colin made his own canopies. Above the tanks is a water-change reservoir where water is heated and aerated ready for use. No further water treatment is needed - Mosgiel's water is pure and not chlorinated. The garage is unheated, so in winter Colin covers the sides of the tanks with boards of Styrofoam for insulation.

* New Zealanders build their tanks in feet and inches, but estimate their capacity in litres.
100 litres = 22 Imperial gallons = 26 US gallons

Both tanks contain groups of one of Colin's favourite fish, Steatocranus casuaris, the "buffalohead" or "bumphead" cichlid. This is a riverine cichlid from West Africa which likes to hide and breed in caves, so the tanks contain flower pot halves for them. Colin has bred buffaloheads successfully and, I might add, spread the young amongst aquarists all over Dunedin! Despite their reputation for aggression, Colin's groups of fish appeared to be living together peacefully. The tanks also hold a mixed variety of other fish, including rainbow fish, a few Rift Lake African cichlids (Neolamprologus brichardi, Labidichromis caeruleus), red tail black sharks, flying foxes, Pakistani loaches, and some corys.

  The grey fish lurking in the back are the buffaloheads

From the garage we went inside the house to the kitchen/eating area, where Colin has removed the original breakfast bar and replaced it with a floor-to-ceiling divider, which contains bookshelves and has a built-in aquarium of about 300 litres. Colin is known around town for his collection of large clown loaches, and this is where he presently keeps most of them. He has seven specimens in this tank, and they are nine to fourteen years old. The largest belonged originally to his mother, and is a female about 9" long. Some of the other clowns come close to this length. The tank also contains fish such as boeseman's rainbowfish (Melanotaena boesemani), Lake Kutubu rainbowfish (Melanotaena lacustris), bristlenose catfish, and an upside-down catfish that is nearly twelve years old.

Colin bred his lacustris rainbows by accident. He decided to refurbish a tank, so he removed the plants, thoroughly cleaned everything, replaced the plants and filled with fresh cold water. A week later he looked in the tank and found it swarming with baby rainbows! Eggs that must have been on the plants had survived all this rough treatment without a problem.

Also in the kitchen eating area is a tank of about 150 litres that is presently being prepared as a community display and holding tank.

One of the community tanks in the spare bedroom

There are yet more aquariums in Colin's spare bedroom. On the floor below the window are two 150 litre community tanks, and against the wall is his most impressive aquarium of all, a 500 litre beauty with a shiny black, hand-built wooden stand and matching canopy.

    The large black tank holds a variety of fish

Colin is presently re-arranging his tanks in preparation for his dream project, breeding clown loaches!

Clown loaches live for a long time and are several years old before they reach sexual maturity. There have been very few instances of them being bred in captivity, but one report was published in the February 1996 issue of Practical Fishkeeping: An aquarist in England had four large (11" - 14") specimens in a tank with some 4" giant danios. The clowns suddenly started acting strangely, and ate the danios! Subsequently they were fed with frozen whitebait (yes, large clown loaches can be carnivorous - they can also be fed feeder goldfish). Conditions in their tank were kept track of - such things as evaporation rate, pH variations, temperature changes, ammonia and nitrite variations, and water changes that were made. These changes duplicated the natural rain forest sequence of drought, rise in temperature, shortage of food, deteriorating water quality, and then heavy rains. The fish laid eggs and some were eaten, but 450 fry were successfully raised.

(For a detailed account of the sequence of seasonal changes in the rain forest and how to simulate them, see the article in Aquarticles' Breeding Section, "Dry and Rainy Seasons in the Tank" by Kristian Adolfsson. This important article is particularly helpful for spawning difficult Amazonian catfishes, tetras, and others).

This clown loach is 9" long. (The glass needs cleaning!)

Colin is about to put all his clown loaches together in the big black tank. He expects them to take months to settle down. He has seen his fish going through motions that seemed to relate to breeding, so he believes he has a chance. Let's wish him luck. If he's successful he'll be a rich and famous man!

Note: February 2003. Colin told me he has now transferred all fifteen of his large loaches to the big tank, and they have settled in well with no hierarchical squabbles.
Keep us updated with any further news, please Colin!

IVAN MOCKFORD

What is the opposite hobby to fish keeping? I'm not sure, but surely stock car racing must come pretty close! Colin Clarke's other great interest is racing Mini saloons on the "Speedway New Zealand" stock car circuit, and his team-mate and mechanic is Ivan Mockford.

Colin took me to Ivan's house to see his aquariums. Ivan kept goldfish as a boy, and took up the hobby again about five years ago when he met Colin, who helped him set up. Ivan is also an active member of the Dunedin Aquarium and Pond Society.  He hopes to find time to have a fish room and breed fish one day, but in the meantime makes do with two large display aquariums, which are in his living room squeezed between the several couches he needs for his large family.

Ivan with his community aquarium

The larger tank is a community tank of about 240 litres on a black wooden stand with matching canopy. It has many plants that are growing nicely, and a collection of about seventy fish of many different species.

  A variety of plants and fish

Ivan's other tank is a sleek modern looking unit with a chrome canopy and teak base. Again it is planted and holds beautiful goldfish.

      The goldfish make a nice display.

.....Go to Part Three: Gordon McKay