OldMan
Apr 27th 2009, 10:01 AM
ALA Convention 2009
I arrived on Thursday afternoon and attended the Fleckenstein’s talk that evening called Married to the Hobby. It was an interesting perspective on what it can mean to a relationship when a person is suffering from MTS to a degree many of us in the hobby would find hard to comprehend. We are talking about a person who converts an above ground swimming pool to a summer tub pond and then realizes that the space under the deck around the pool is “wasted space” and proceeds to fill that space with stock tanks similar to the one that I use for my summer tub. This literally means that there are about a dozen under the deck skirting around the large above ground converted pool. A full basement on a ranch style house also means the space exists for hundreds of medium sized tanks suitable for breeding and rearing lots of interesting fish. With a severe case of MTS, many of those tanks already exist along with automatic water change equipment and food culturing equipment and supplies.
Pat Hartman’s “Livebearers I Have Known” was very interesting and of course was accompanied by many nice photographs of a wide variety of common and not very common livebearers.
Dr. Molly Morris gave a great talk on some of the factors that influence mate selection by the female swordtails she studies and related it well to the reproductive success that each male achieves. The different populations of swordtails show different mate preferences but the most alarming thing to come from her talk was that populations that often exist in the same environment and are separated only by the female’s mate preference are hybridizing in large numbers. The natural hybrids seem to be related to the pollutants in the waters where the fish live making the females unable to determine the potential mate’s species using odor cues. It seems the visual cues that we use to identify a species are not useful to the females in identifying the target mates. They were almost completely drawn to another fish by its size which of course means that without the olfactory cues, the smaller species females end up mating with the larger fish that are the wrong species. End result is hybridization in wild populations and the resulting loss of the separate species population numbers of members.
Mike Hellweg’s talk on seahorses and pipefish was intriguing enough that my non-fishy wife has actually bought her first aquarium, a 2.5 gallon for dwarf seahorses. No stock in it yet but our house is not big enough for us to both be in the hobby and both have enough tanks for our individual interests. Calling a seahorse a livebearer is a bit of a stretch but the parent, male, retains the developing fry in a pouch much like a marsupial does and does provide more than simple environmental protection during that time. I wonder if Mike considers a mouth brooder a livebearer using the same way of thinking.
Rusty Wessel’s talk about collection was very interesting to those of us who have very little chance of ever being able to afford to do such a thing. There were plenty of pictures of places that collection takes place and some of the techniques that are used in differing locations and for differing fish being collected.
Dr. Phil Nixon’s talk on aquatic insects was fascinating. Many of the people missed it and I am afraid the title and the timing may have been part of the reason. Phil went into great detail about some of the insects that are encountered when doing wild collecting and included in his talk the impact that the specific insects can have on both fish predation and on the people doing the collecting. His follow-up talk later in the day on native livebearer collection, he is a long term NANFA member too, built on the information and I am afraid the folks who missed the first talk missed out on the way that the second talk built on the first. Some of his collection information duplicated Rusty Wessel’s in terms of collection techniques but, being focused on collection in North America, it gave much more useful information to someone without the budget and connections for a collecting trip to Nicaragua or similar places.
Mike Hellweg’s talk on halfbeaks was interesting to someone like me who will probably never own any. It gave me just enough insight into the needs and characters of halfbeaks to know that I have made the correct choice at my experience level with fish care. Halfbeaks strike me more now than ever as a fish to be kept in a species only tank and under strict supervision to prevent loss of fish. The extreme management that these fish require is not a place that I am willing to go. Nonetheless, the fish are fascinating in the same way that rattlesnakes or grizzly bears can be. They are quite interesting but I am not prepared to try to care for them.
The talk by Michael Tobler on the way that Poecilia mexicana adapts to both caves and sulphuric water was fascinating. Although the fish are all of the same species, there are morphological adaptations within the populations that allow the fish to adapt to the high levels of H2S and that allow the cave dwellers to adapt to the non-existence of algae type food supplies and females not being able to identify their own size preference visually to make their mate selection in the males. Experimental data shows that the cave dwellers do indeed choose the larger males so there is some speculation that their improved ability use the lateral line sensing may be allowing that. They have also adapted to eating a largely carnivorous diet with its impact on alimentary canal length. An X-Y plot of some of the measured data gave a very strong apparent correlation between the population’s location and the ability of that population to function well within its adopted environment. It looks to me like we have started making inroads into understanding how fish adapt to their environment but have a long way to go in understanding it all. The Vern Parish fund will be a strong factor in promoting work similar to what Michael Tobler has done just as it was a factor in the work he has been able to do.
All in all it was an interesting time and was great to meet so many people face to face that have only been names on a forum to me until now. The thing that surprised me was how few tanks I have compared to most of the people attending. These guys seem to think that having 100 or more tanks at your home is perfectly normal. I thought I might have gotten carried away when I brought 2 tanks to set up in my room and use for the fish I had brought along to sell at the auction. I soon found out that I was very much a small time operator in terms of how many tanks there were in the room. I would have needed to use my pickup truck to bring along what I saw in many of the rooms and since I only have a small pickup, I would have found carrying as many tanks as I saw quite challenging even then. A dog in a motel room is one thing but 10 or 15 fish tanks is probably quite a novelty to the motel staff. The storage tubs full of fish for trading with each other is probably something they never see anywhere else too.
Some of my pick ups at the ALA 2009 convention auction were:
Brachyrhaphis roseni (no consistent common name but a beautiful little fish)
Goodea gracilis (dusky splitfin)
Limia perugiae (Perugia's Limia)
some additions to my Heterandria formosa (least killiefish) for genetic diversity
Xipophophorus nezahualcoyotl – Rio el Salto (Northern mountain swordtail)
Xenoophorus (http://www.goodeiden.de/html/xenoophorus3.html) captivus (http://www.goodeiden.de/html/captivus3.html) – Jesus Maria (Green Goodeid)
Ilyodon whitei – Rio Huamita (Balsas splitfin)
Ameca splendens (Butterfly goodeid)
My list of goodeids is now up to 6 species but we will see how it goes in terms of maintaining and breeding them. Now all that I need is enough tanks to give them all permanent homes. Right now they are in temporary quarters or are being asked to share quarters with compatible fish that pose no threat in terms of crossing with the new stock. The tank sharing will keep some fish from being able to breed with success and there would go my chance of using some of them for BAP entries. With no way to breed, you don’t get breeding results.
I arrived on Thursday afternoon and attended the Fleckenstein’s talk that evening called Married to the Hobby. It was an interesting perspective on what it can mean to a relationship when a person is suffering from MTS to a degree many of us in the hobby would find hard to comprehend. We are talking about a person who converts an above ground swimming pool to a summer tub pond and then realizes that the space under the deck around the pool is “wasted space” and proceeds to fill that space with stock tanks similar to the one that I use for my summer tub. This literally means that there are about a dozen under the deck skirting around the large above ground converted pool. A full basement on a ranch style house also means the space exists for hundreds of medium sized tanks suitable for breeding and rearing lots of interesting fish. With a severe case of MTS, many of those tanks already exist along with automatic water change equipment and food culturing equipment and supplies.
Pat Hartman’s “Livebearers I Have Known” was very interesting and of course was accompanied by many nice photographs of a wide variety of common and not very common livebearers.
Dr. Molly Morris gave a great talk on some of the factors that influence mate selection by the female swordtails she studies and related it well to the reproductive success that each male achieves. The different populations of swordtails show different mate preferences but the most alarming thing to come from her talk was that populations that often exist in the same environment and are separated only by the female’s mate preference are hybridizing in large numbers. The natural hybrids seem to be related to the pollutants in the waters where the fish live making the females unable to determine the potential mate’s species using odor cues. It seems the visual cues that we use to identify a species are not useful to the females in identifying the target mates. They were almost completely drawn to another fish by its size which of course means that without the olfactory cues, the smaller species females end up mating with the larger fish that are the wrong species. End result is hybridization in wild populations and the resulting loss of the separate species population numbers of members.
Mike Hellweg’s talk on seahorses and pipefish was intriguing enough that my non-fishy wife has actually bought her first aquarium, a 2.5 gallon for dwarf seahorses. No stock in it yet but our house is not big enough for us to both be in the hobby and both have enough tanks for our individual interests. Calling a seahorse a livebearer is a bit of a stretch but the parent, male, retains the developing fry in a pouch much like a marsupial does and does provide more than simple environmental protection during that time. I wonder if Mike considers a mouth brooder a livebearer using the same way of thinking.
Rusty Wessel’s talk about collection was very interesting to those of us who have very little chance of ever being able to afford to do such a thing. There were plenty of pictures of places that collection takes place and some of the techniques that are used in differing locations and for differing fish being collected.
Dr. Phil Nixon’s talk on aquatic insects was fascinating. Many of the people missed it and I am afraid the title and the timing may have been part of the reason. Phil went into great detail about some of the insects that are encountered when doing wild collecting and included in his talk the impact that the specific insects can have on both fish predation and on the people doing the collecting. His follow-up talk later in the day on native livebearer collection, he is a long term NANFA member too, built on the information and I am afraid the folks who missed the first talk missed out on the way that the second talk built on the first. Some of his collection information duplicated Rusty Wessel’s in terms of collection techniques but, being focused on collection in North America, it gave much more useful information to someone without the budget and connections for a collecting trip to Nicaragua or similar places.
Mike Hellweg’s talk on halfbeaks was interesting to someone like me who will probably never own any. It gave me just enough insight into the needs and characters of halfbeaks to know that I have made the correct choice at my experience level with fish care. Halfbeaks strike me more now than ever as a fish to be kept in a species only tank and under strict supervision to prevent loss of fish. The extreme management that these fish require is not a place that I am willing to go. Nonetheless, the fish are fascinating in the same way that rattlesnakes or grizzly bears can be. They are quite interesting but I am not prepared to try to care for them.
The talk by Michael Tobler on the way that Poecilia mexicana adapts to both caves and sulphuric water was fascinating. Although the fish are all of the same species, there are morphological adaptations within the populations that allow the fish to adapt to the high levels of H2S and that allow the cave dwellers to adapt to the non-existence of algae type food supplies and females not being able to identify their own size preference visually to make their mate selection in the males. Experimental data shows that the cave dwellers do indeed choose the larger males so there is some speculation that their improved ability use the lateral line sensing may be allowing that. They have also adapted to eating a largely carnivorous diet with its impact on alimentary canal length. An X-Y plot of some of the measured data gave a very strong apparent correlation between the population’s location and the ability of that population to function well within its adopted environment. It looks to me like we have started making inroads into understanding how fish adapt to their environment but have a long way to go in understanding it all. The Vern Parish fund will be a strong factor in promoting work similar to what Michael Tobler has done just as it was a factor in the work he has been able to do.
All in all it was an interesting time and was great to meet so many people face to face that have only been names on a forum to me until now. The thing that surprised me was how few tanks I have compared to most of the people attending. These guys seem to think that having 100 or more tanks at your home is perfectly normal. I thought I might have gotten carried away when I brought 2 tanks to set up in my room and use for the fish I had brought along to sell at the auction. I soon found out that I was very much a small time operator in terms of how many tanks there were in the room. I would have needed to use my pickup truck to bring along what I saw in many of the rooms and since I only have a small pickup, I would have found carrying as many tanks as I saw quite challenging even then. A dog in a motel room is one thing but 10 or 15 fish tanks is probably quite a novelty to the motel staff. The storage tubs full of fish for trading with each other is probably something they never see anywhere else too.
Some of my pick ups at the ALA 2009 convention auction were:
Brachyrhaphis roseni (no consistent common name but a beautiful little fish)
Goodea gracilis (dusky splitfin)
Limia perugiae (Perugia's Limia)
some additions to my Heterandria formosa (least killiefish) for genetic diversity
Xipophophorus nezahualcoyotl – Rio el Salto (Northern mountain swordtail)
Xenoophorus (http://www.goodeiden.de/html/xenoophorus3.html) captivus (http://www.goodeiden.de/html/captivus3.html) – Jesus Maria (Green Goodeid)
Ilyodon whitei – Rio Huamita (Balsas splitfin)
Ameca splendens (Butterfly goodeid)
My list of goodeids is now up to 6 species but we will see how it goes in terms of maintaining and breeding them. Now all that I need is enough tanks to give them all permanent homes. Right now they are in temporary quarters or are being asked to share quarters with compatible fish that pose no threat in terms of crossing with the new stock. The tank sharing will keep some fish from being able to breed with success and there would go my chance of using some of them for BAP entries. With no way to breed, you don’t get breeding results.