The Capital Cichlid Association’s November meeting brought in Ken Davis from Atlanta, Georgia, to speak about his collecting experiences in Honduras with Rusty Wessel. Ken has been president of the Atlanta Area Aquarium Association, owned a retail fish store, wholesale distributor, and fish hatchery, so it was great to hear the adventures of an expert through the Central American country. The presentation was more or less a slide-show of various species of fish (and other critters) that he found during his trip. I’m going to share a few of the species that most interested me.

Of course, one of the most famous fish from Honduras that has recently spread throughout the hobby has been the Honduran Red Point. Interestingly enough, this fish has already been selectively bred to look very little like its native counterpart. Below is a picture of how the Red Points look in the wild; note the vivid coloration on the body. Apparently, many breeders have been trying to get a blue body on this fish, to the detriment of the other colors, even some of the red.

Ken told sad story about the beautiful undescribed Parachromis species of fish seen below. He was staying at a local hotel, and while waiting for all of his comrades to wake up, he and some others took a short hike to a small lagoon nearby just to see what was there. To their delight, they managed to catch one of these fish, which they have never found anywhere else in the country. They subsequently caught a total of 7 fish, and are currently breeding them. Unfortunately, on a later trip, they went back to the location, and all of the forest surrounding the lagoon had been cut down for new development, and the water itself was covered with an oil slick. Nothing living remained in the water, so it’s possible that the fish they previously pulled are the only surviving of the species. Let’s hope they can thrive in captivity.

One of the things that I enjoyed about Ken’s talk is that he didn’t confine it solely to cichlids. While I love cichlids, I’m also interested in the complete ecosystem of any given place. In addition to several cichlids that fit this description, Honduras is home to one of the world nastiest livebearers, the Belonesox belizanus. Just look at the teeth of these guys. They can get up to about a foot long, and Ken says they’re great fish to have in your fishroom when you need to cull a group of fry.

There are also a large number of invertebrates to be found in Honduras. Ken found (and feasted on) several freshwater crabs and prawns, but in amoungst the roots of creekside trees, he also came across these inch-long purple shrimp. He’s tried unsuccessfully to bring them back to the States, but he hopes to have success sometime in the future, as he sees a great place for them in the hobby. I agree!

Finally, I asked Ken what the habitat was like as far as aquatic plants go. He said that 99% of the places he collected were rocky bottomed streams or rivers that contained zero plant life. The only exception was a small section of private property that the owners invited him to that wasn’t fished commercially or otherwise. I’m sure that there are a number of interesting plants available, but I imagine they might be hard to come by. Overall, Ken highly recommends Honduras as a place to visit. He says the people are incredibly friendly, and the accomodations aren’t bad. Maybe someday I’ll be able to visit there.

Note: All pictures of species were taken during Ken Davis’ presentation, and belong completely to him.

I mentioned last week how I’ve been tearing down a few of my smaller tanks in order to consolidate them into a single larger aquarium. Well, I’ve begun setting up a new 50G breeder tank. The nice thing about a 50G aquarium is that it is as tall as it is deep, giving it very nice dimensions for creating an aquascape. I still don’t have a light fixture for this tank yet, so up to now, all I’ve been able to setup is the hardscape.

Using a huge manzanita root ball on the left, my goal was to create the look of a log or tree that’s fallen into the water and has sat there for awhile. The limbs have settled in between rocks, and only the larger ones remain undecayed. That’s the premise so far. I’ve had a difficult time trying to decide what plants I’m going to use in this tank, and exactly where they’re going to go. I’ll likely use a bunch of smaller leaf’d plants, such as various rotalas, but I still haven’t figured out how they’re supposed to fit with this hardscape. I think my biggest stumbling block right now is more about where to position the negative space (unoccupied area), rather than cramming plants throughout the entire thing. I’d love to hear feedback on the hardscape itself, as well as, any ideas for planting.

Autumn is a wonderful time of year in Maryland. It may not be known for the spectacular leaf colors that New England is, but they are brilliant nevertheless. This weekend, my wife and I took a walk along the Little and Middle Patuxent Rivers with our two dogs to enjoy the season. I’ve talked about this area a number of times on the blog, but there’s something new and different every time we’re out in the forest.

Along the water’s edge, I was hopping some rocks with the dogs, and looked down to see an freshwater Asiatic clam in a part of the river that I’d looked for them before, but never found them. I didn’t see many fish out and about this time, however, but I suspect that’s due to the declining temperatures.

Of course, the main reason we were out was to see the leaves. There were stunning bright orange and red leaves lining the trees, and littering the forest floor. I’m pretty sure that this is the peak for the leaves this year in our area, as the trees all around exhibit a full spectrum of color.

We also took a different trail this time on our hike to an old quarry. It’s now in the process of being reclaimed by the forest, but you can see above how the hillside was mined for rock. There were a few leftover rusting pipes coming from the water, that I assume were used to transport water to the quarry. Overall, a nice relaxing hike before heading back to work on Monday.

The GWAPA meeting that I hosted has come and gone, and the weather outside has turned downright chilly, so it was time for me to tear down the pond for the year. I brought the Crinum americana indoors, as well, as a number of the other plants that had spent the last few months basking in the open sun. I also managed to net out about 4 dozen cherry shrimp from the bottom of the pond.

In addition to some outside maintenance, I’ve also been working to break down a few of my smaller tanks in hope that I can replace them with a larger “farm tank” to grow out a number of exotic plants that I’ve been acquiring recently. To that end, with the Jewel cichlids off to a new home, my 20H is completely empty. I piled all of the wood/rocks from that tank into my 20L quarantine tank.

This suits me just fine because I had recently put 20 juevenille bristlenosed plecos from the Catfish Convention Auction into this tank. These plecos are adoring the algae-ridden wood that was in the 20H.

In addition to the plecos, that 20L now contains 3 I. werneri that I’ve been unable to fish out to move to my 75G, and a large number of trumpet snails that retreat to the substrate during the day, and emerge each evening.

I’ve also torn down both of my 2.5G tanks that I had used for my first wormstrate/soil experiment. All that’s left is the 20L and two 10Gs, which I’ll need to consolidate at some point. I’m thinking of getting a 50 breeder, or similarly sized tank for my farm tank. Of course, we’ll see what deal comes along.

My wife and I hosted GWAPA’s October meeting at our home. We had around 30 folks show up on a very rainy day in Maryland for a meeting about photographing your planted aquarium. I did my best to give a talk structured after this post, and hopefully the other members came away with a little bit more knowledge than when they arrived about how to get a semi-decent picture of their tank.

We also asked for nominations for the 2009 board of directors. It looks like the board will remain largely the same, with just the recording secretary slot being new. The auction wasn’t as large as some of them have been lately, but a number of relatively new plants to the hobby showed up at this meeting. A new Glossostigma, Lindernia, and Rotala all made an appearance. Hopefully they’ll soon make their rounds to more and more folks.

After the meeting was over, I fished out my Jewel cichlids, and sent them to a good home with another member who already keeps some Jewels. They were wonderfully personable fish, but were too aggressive to keep with much else. In the end, I plan to tear down a couple of my smaller tanks, so I needed to find a home for them. All in all, a great meeting!