Catfish Convention Auction

October 19th, 2008

After an extremely busy couple of days preparing for and attending a family wedding, I managed to carve out some time to attend the All-Aquarium Catfish Convention auction. I was very pleased to be able to catch up with Dr. Devon Graham, who runs and operates Margarita Tours, which is the company I traveled to the Peruvian Amazon with in August 2007. In addition, from everyone I talked to, it sounds like the convention itself was a tremendous success. I’m very proud of GWAPA participating on Friday night with a workshop about planted-tank-friendly catfish, and representing with a beautiful informational display table. That was all made possible by the work of some very dedicated members.

The auction was huge, consisting of 10 lots of items. I brought 15 bags of plants and fish, and I suspect everyone else did similarly because there could be no less than 1000 items there. Plants, catfish, killies, cichlids, tanks, tools, equipment, it was all present. My only buy of the day was a fantastic grab, pulling 20 Bristlenosed Pleco juveniles for only $14. I have no idea what I’m going to do with all of those if they reach adulthood, but I’ll enjoy raising them up, possibly breeding them, and passing them onto other aquarists. I’d love to hear what everyone else in attendance came away with.

6 Responses to “Catfish Convention Auction”

  1. octopus.gallery Says:

    Lots of crypts, which is what I was mainly there for, a book on pirahnas for my brother since he’s decided that’s what he wants to keep, and some replacement cichlids for a batch that was lost to a pH crash. There just weren’t that many fish that I was interested in (and boy was I tired of hearing “Another bag of angelfish!” by the end of the night) and I was trying to keep my spending down on the plants.

  2. guitarfish Says:

    Sounds great OG. By the end of the auction, had the prices on most things fallen off since folks were tired? If I recall, that’s when the deals could really be had at the AquaFest auction a year ago.

  3. octopus.gallery Says:

    Nope, which was disappointing. The hope of dollar plants was the whole reason I stuck it out. Even bags of val were still going for $3 or $4 in the last hour. I got one really ratty sword for a dollar but everything else was over $5. Great for the sellers, I guess, but like I said, disappointing for me.

  4. guitarfish Says:

    That’s too bad! I guess you’ll just have to come to the GWAPA meeting/auction this weekend then! *hint* 😉

  5. octopus.gallery Says:

    😀 We’ll see. I’m leaving for an overseas trip on the Tuesday after so I’ve got a bunch of prep to do over the weekend. Although, I could use a photography lesson. I’ve got a little cheapy Nikon point-and-shoot that’s decided to completely freak out when I try to take pictures of my 125 and for some reason completely blows out the greens but still doesn’t have enough light to take clear pictures of anything but stationary fish. Example: http://www.flickr.com/photos/octopusgallery/2944315101/in/set-72157604690095374/

  6. Kim Says:

    Green and jealous, again!