Underwater News September 2014 - Pioneer Valley Aquarium Society
Transcription
Underwater News September 2014 - Pioneer Valley Aquarium Society
PIONEER VALLEY AQUARIUM SOCIETY NEWSLETTER September 2, 2014 THIS MONTH’S SPEAKER IS RIT FORCIER - LIVEBEARERS TABLE OF CONTENTS OFFICERS PRESIDENT Martha Morris [email protected] SEPTEMBER 2014 VICE PRESIDENT Jacob Guinasso SECRETARY Open TREASURER Tina Guinasso IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT Scott Craig BOARD MEMBERS IN THIS ISSUE COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSONS 3 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Jeff Slade Bill Maier AUCTION CHAIR Jim Cormier MEMBERSHIP Don Hennemann PROGRAMS MUSEUM LIASON LIBRARY Bill Maier REFRESHMENTS William Maier SUNSHINE NEWSLETTER Jerine Blissett BYLAWS EXCHANGE EDITOR NEC DELEGATE NEC ALT. DELEGATE Martha Morris The Underwater News is the official publication of the Pioneer Valley Aquarium Society, Inc. and is published either monthly or bimonthly except for July and August. The views and opinions printed herein are those of the individual authors, and are not necessarily those of PVAS. The Underwater News is provided free to our members as part of their membership. Unless otherwise indicated, original articles and drawings may be re-printed in other non-profit publications, as long as credit is given to the author and The Underwater News. Two copies of the publication in which the reprint appears should be sent to PVAS. Address all exchange bulletins and correspondence to the Pioneer Valley Aquarium Society, Inc. c/o Michael Liu, 14 Indian Hill, Florence, MA 01062. 4 WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE CLUB Minutes from our General & BOD Meeting, Treasurer’s Report & Up Coming Events 6 SAVING LIVEBEARERS’ FRY THE NATURAL WAY by Bob Berdoulay From Gravel Gossip, Diamond State Aquarium Society, Delaware City - Aquarticles 7 BREEDING THE NOT-SO-COMMON GUPPY By Rich Serva First published in “Tank Topics”, Greater Akron Aquarium Society, January 2001 - Aquarticles 9 PVAS PROGRAMS, CONTEST & TRADING POST VISIT PVAS.NET FOR UPDATES AND MEMBERSHIPS 2 Secondly, Don Henneman has organized an exciting grow-out contest with some pretty hefty prize money. The fish is Skiffia multipunctata, an endangered C.A.R.E.S. fish. We will be distributing the fish at the September meeting and the competition promises to be challenging! Yup, yours truly is in! PVAS is officially becoming a C.A.R.E.S. club member. C.A.R.E.S provides education, awareness, hands-on conservation and the distribution of at-risk species to aquarists for their preservation. I will have some information sheets at the meeting, and I encourage everyone to devote a tank or two for fish that may one day disappear in the wild. SEPTEMBER 2014 Well, the summer is winding down and for many of you, that means the start of your favorite season – fall! It also means the PVAS meetings return, and we can catch up on the latest with all our good friends. There is a lot of exciting things happening with the club. First of all, we are moving! General meetings, including the September 2nd meeting, will now be held at First Congregational Church, 20 Lathrop St., West Springfield. A lot of our hardearned money was being spent on rent at the Science Museum, but now our rent will be less than half, and we will be getting more bang for our buck! You will find plenty of parking by the entrance, in the back (to the left of the entrance), on the street and on Park St. Finally, behind our entrance is a small historical cemetery. Behind the cemetery is a senior center. Behind the senior center is a parking lot that we are able to utilize. The lot is about a two-minute walk via Park St. PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Ken Purcaro is organizing a group buy from Imperial Tropicals, and he has managed to finagle a 10% discount for us. Check out their site and let Ken know what you would like to order. He will have a list at the September meeting and will be taking orders then. This is a great opportunity to get some really nice fish at a great price. We will have new tee shirts available at the September meeting. This batch will have the PVAS logo on the back and promises to look really sharp. Beginning in September the club is offering to members frozen bloodworms at $5 a pound flat from Oregon Desert Brine Shrimp. This is the wholesale price and the club is making NO money on sales – it is, pure and simple, a benefit of being a PVAS member. Jeff will bring a few extra pounds to the meeting, but please e-mail me in advance and let me know how many you would like. I, personally, am getting ten pounds. I’ve used this company’s bloodworms before, and my discus can not tell them from Hikari. If they could, they wouldn’t eat them so readily. Rit Forcier will be the first speaker at our new meeting place in September, and I believe he will be speaking about livebearers. Finally, on Saturday, October 4, the Pioneer Valley Aquarium Society will be taking in the central Mass. trilogy! We will be visiting Central Mass Aquatics, Tropic Isle and finally, Uncle Ned’s Fish Factory. We will stop at an inexpensive restaurant for lunch after a visit to Tropic Isle, but people are also welcome to brown bag it. Members will meet at the Anchor House (2589 Boston Rd., Wilbraham) at 9:00am for pre-arranged carpooling. If people would like to create their own carpool, the club will reimburse gas for cars carrying at least four club members from whatever point they picked up the fourth person. Non-members pay $15. Please note that the trip takes the place of our regularly scheduled October meeting. There will be no meeting on Tuesday, October 7th. So, lots happening, and I look forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday, September 2nd! Martha Morris VISIT PVAS.NET FOR UPDATES AND MEMBERSHIPS 3 This month’s speaker is Rit Forcier. He will be conducting a program about Livebearers. First Congregational Church 20 Lathrop St. West Springfield, MA SEPTEMBER 2014 This months meeting is September 2nd at WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE CLUB WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE CLUB TREASURER’S REPORT Please see treasure for more information MINUTES FROM OUR BOD MEETING No Minutes VISIT PVAS.NET FOR UPDATES AND MEMBERSHIPS 4 OCTOBER STORE TRIP! On Saturday, October 4, the Pioneer Valley Aquarium Society will be taking in the central Mass. trilogy! We will be visiting Central Mass Aquatics, Tropic Isle and finally, Uncle Ned’s Fish Factory. We will stop at an inexpensive restaurant for lunch after a visit to Tropic Isle, but people are also welcome to brown bag it. Members will meet at the Anchor House (2589 Boston Rd., Wilbraham) at 9:00am for pre-arranged carpooling. If people would like to create their own carpool, the club will reimburse gas for cars carrying at least four club members from whatever point they picked up the fourth person. Non-members pay $15. Please note that the trip takes the place of our regularly scheduled October meeting. There will be no meeting on Tuesday, October 7th. FEATURED ARTICLE SEPTEMBER 2014 Saving Livebearers’ Fry the Natural Way by Bob Berdoulay From Gravel Gossip, Diamond State Aquarium Society, Delaware City Aquarticles Need a place for all those baby livebearers to hide? Instead of using breeding traps I load the tank with a variety of plants that enable the fry to avoid being food for mom and dad. A combination of bottom plants and floating plants gives the babies places to hang out until they are big enough to not be considered food by the parents. A few of the most common floating plants are riccia (Riccia fluitans), duckweed (Lemna minor) and the fine leaved (a misnomer since this is a fern, this term should be fronds) water sprite (Ceratopteris thalictroides). The first two are found worldwide, while water sprite is to be found in the tropics. All of these plants are easy to maintain. They seem to do best in water that is slightly acidic (pH 6.8), temperatures of 75-80° F, and like the water soft. The lighting requirements are modest since they do not need a lot of light. The riccia and water sprite are members of the fern group and will grow best if not under constant agitation. Duckweed likewise prefers quiet waters and will grow rapidly. The water sprite produces long trailing roots along with wide-spreading fronds that will provide your fry with places to hide. This plant grows rapidly and sends out daughter plantlets on its fronds. Your tank surface can become quite overgrown in a short period of time and pruning will be necessary. The riccia is also a fern and grows in a tangled mass at the surface, thus also providing shelter for the fry. The shading that is produced lowers the amount of light reaching the substrate of the tank; therefore you need to think about shade tolerant plants for the bottom plantings. Three choices come to mind. The water sprite can be planted in the substrate and will grow in an upright position. Java fern (Microsorium pteropus), and/or Java moss (Vesicularia dubyana), both from Southeast Asia, can be used in the tank by attaching them to rocks or wood. I use Java moss in large clumps lying loose on the bottom of a bare tank. This provides adequate shelter for fry on the bottom with the water sprite doing the same at the surface. A major drawback to using these floating plants is their rapid growth and thus covering the entire surface of the water. This makes it difficult to feed your fish as they find it hard to locate the flakes among the plants, or the flakes land on top of the plants and rot. It is necessary to keep some area of the surface clear of plants. I read about a solution to the problem years ago, but I can’t remember where (that’s age!). It is fairly simple and will control the plants, especially the duckweed. This device is the “plant barrier.” The barrier is anything that will contain the plants and prevent them from spreading over the entire surface of the tank. I believe the original device I read about was made of soda straws, bent, and connected end to end in various shapes and used to surround the plants. The problem was that the straws would eventually fill with water and sink, thus freeing the plants. I made my barrier from airline tubing and connected the ends with small pieces of hard plastic tubing. The only shape I formed was a ring but it worked and never sank. Try this natural way to provide hiding places for fry, I have found that I usually wind up with plenty of young without having the trauma of moving the females in and out of breeding traps. VISIT PVAS.NET FOR UPDATES AND MEMBERSHIPS 6 SEPTEMBER 2014 http://fishstockphotos.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html FEATURED ARTICLE Breeding the Not-so-Common Guppy By Rich Serva First published in “Tank Topics”, Greater Akron Aquarium Society, January 2001 Aquarticles I know you are thinking what does he know about guppies. He is an “oddball” livebearer keeper. Actually this is an old, old article of mine that I picked up and dusted off and shined up a little. Believe it or not I was a dyed in the wool guppy fanatic. I started keeping guppies back when I was a pre-teen. I used to show on the International Fancy Guppy Association circuit before the “wild” livebearer bug bit me. Anyway Bill Allen (editor of the American Livebearer Association’s magazine) was looking for someone to write a few beginner articles on guppies for the magazine and no volunteers came forward so...he asked that “older than dirt” (I mean wise elder from Detroit) tech editor for suggestions of someone to approach. Anyway we will see if this is any help to beginners. When people talk about common livebearers, the guppy is usually the first fish mentioned. Granted the pet store guppy is normally quite common, but guppies that win consistently at fish shows are not. The “wild” male guppy was 3/4 inch long with a few color spots. After many generations of selective breeding, the “old time” guppy breeders developed what we now call the “fancy guppy”. Although guppies are easy to breed, improving a strain of guppies takes hard work. If you adhere to the following principles (like they say - “do as I say, not as I do”), you can maintain and even improve a prize winning strain of guppies. 1) Here’s where I get in trouble with some pet stores. Start with a good stock of fish from a breeder. Many pairs of pet store fish are not really matched pairs; the males and females come from totally unrelated strains of fish. You can start with a poor strain of fish and go from there but why on earth do you want to reinvent the wheel? There are plenty of good strains of guppies at local auction or available mail order that you can start with as your basic stock. VISIT PVAS.NET FOR UPDATES AND MEMBERSHIPS 7 3) Breed your fish and collect a batch or two of young then move on to the next generation. Your improvements to your strain of guppies will not come in quantum leaps but small improvements. Also have a plan and keep with it (for example, if your guppies are too small and lack color, plan to breed x generations to improve size then work on color afterward). Many a strain was lost by indecisive breeding programs that bounced around instead of staying focused. 8) Keep a related strain. Two related strains (preferably the same color) can be occasionally crossed. Otherwise, you could lose your strain from too much inbreeding. The first signs of too much inbreeding are low fertility or a high percentage of deformities such as bent spines or hernias. 4) Don’t crowd your fish. For most people crowding fish stunts growth. Eight to twelve guppies in a ten gallon tank are plenty. The best way to get down to a workable number of fish is to cull. Why raise 20 mediocre fish when you can raise 10 good fish. If you give the fish the space, they can reach their full potential. Decide ahead of time what you are working on and follow your program. If you are working on shape, use the fish with the best shape - do not suddenly change to using a fish that has better color. If you have to, then set up a second tank and start working on color with a separate line of fish. 5) Don’t harem breed. (Harem breeding is allowing a tank of males to breed with a tank of females randomly. It is breeding pot-luck style.) Select only your best males and females for breeding. 6) Don’t use the first male that matures. That first male rarely reaches the size that the slower maturing males reach. 7) Select your best females for breeding. Here I am talking about the best female for growing the best males, not the best looking female. Selecting the best male is easy; selecting the best female requires becoming familiar with your strain. It is really not hard to find out which type of females drop the best males. Breed each of your 9) Feed young fish often. If you want your guppies to grow as large as possible, feed them often during the period of rapid growth in their first few months of life. Feed 3 or 4 times a day. Feed the babies newly hatched brine shrimp or microworms if possible. Feed the juveniles frozen brine shrimp and live foods as often as possible. SEPTEMBER 2014 different types of females to a single good male. Raise the different batches of babies and compare the males when they mature. Use your female type that produces the best males. FEATURED ARTICLE 2) Purchase a young pair of fish. Old males have trouble breeding. Big tails are not easy to drag around. There is a greater incidence of deformities that comes from breeding older, past their prime fish. 10) Do small daily water changes. If not, then at least do weekly water changes. Decaying food and fish wastes will quickly foul the water. II) Keep the fish warm. Although guppies can be kept from 65 to 85 degrees F, the optimum temperature for raising guppies is 74 to 78 degrees F. If you keep your tanks in racks like I do, then place the babies in the top rows where the temperature will be naturally warmer (that is if you heat the room rather than each tank individually). Your bottom rows will be cooler and this is where you can keep the mature fish. The guppies’ metabolism will be slower due to the cooler water and they will stay around a little longer for you to enjoy. 12) Be patient. Only 5-10 percent of each drop has the potential of being better than their parents; however, that is more than enough fish to improve the strain. VISIT PVAS.NET FOR UPDATES AND MEMBERSHIPS 8 BREEDERS AWARD & BOWL SHOW PROGRAM BREEDER AWARDS STANDINGS BOWL SHOW CONTEST RESULTS April Bowl Show: 1. Michael Liu - Aulonoacara sp. 2. Jeff Slade - Aulonacara jacobfreibergi 3. Dan McKercher - Blue Eyed Rainbow 2014 BOWL SHOW STANDINGS 27 points-Jeff Slade 13 points-Michael Liu 5 points-Rich DiGeorge 5 points-Dan McKercher Michael Liu 8 Points Joe Coleman 2 Points Dave Giza 1 Point 2014 PHOTO SHOW STANDINGS 11 points-Jim Cormier 8 points-Jacob Guinasso 7 points-Jeff Curran 5 points-Chuck Pixley 5 points-Elva Hughes PHOTO SHOW CONTEST RESULTS Updated Results in next Issue PHOTO SHOW CONTEST RULES 1. The photo show is open to all members. Members must take the photograph and bring the entry to the show at each meeting. 2. Members may bring up to two photos, unframed, each meeting. Photos can be any size up to 8 x 10 inches. 3. Photos will be judged by the membership in attendance and winners will be determined based on popular vote. Points will be awarded as follows: First Place-3 Points, Second Place-2 Points, Third Place-1 Point. Point totals will be kept by the Photo Show Chair. Winning photos will be published in the next newsletter. 4. The first place photo cannot be re-entered for the current year. Second and third place photos may be reentered in future photo shows during the same calendar year. 5. Point totals will accumulate through the December general meeting. Awards will be presented in January, and are as follows: First Place-$50, Second Place-$25, Third Place-Free Annual Membership. 6. Winners need to submit their entries digitally if they wish to have them published in the newsletter. VISIT PVAS.NET FOR UPDATES AND MEMBERSHIPS 9 SEPTEMBER 2014 Jim Cormier 605 points Master Breeder Award Tony & Denise Panetta 580points Master Breeder Award Mike Liu 430 points Senior Breeder Award Jim White 380 pointsSenior Breeder Award Chuck & Charlene Pixley 370 points Master Breeder Award Dan Balser 225 points Senior Breeder Award Joe Coleman 170 points Breeder Award Elva Hughes 170 points Breeder Award Tom Stevens 30 points Seth Harris 25 points Rit Forcier 15 points Dave Giza 5 points PVAS PROGRAMS & CONTEST PVAS PROGRAMS & CONTEST Looking for parts for Whisper filter pictured, mainly the knob that goes on top. Please contact Ken Purcaro at [email protected] SEPTEMBER 2014 WTB: Part for Whisper Power Filter BUSINESS DIRECTORY TRADING POST Please send ads to the Jerine Blissett , via email at [email protected]. Lists may also be dropped off to me at the monthly meetings. Please send an accurate description along with your contact information. It is not necessary to list a specific price. PVAS is not responsible for ensuring the quantity or quality of the items being sold through this listing service. All sales and trades are to be negotiated between the buyer and seller. VISIT PVAS.NET FOR UPDATES AND MEMBERSHIPS 10 COME JOIN US! COME JOIN US! DIRECTIONS TO THE SPRINGFIELD SCIENCE MUSEUM: From the North - Take Interstate 91 South to Exit 7. Turn left onto State Street, proceed for three blocks and you will see the large, white marble Springfield City Library building on your left. Take the first left past the library onto Elliot Street and then the next left onto Edwards Street. SEPTEMBER 2014 DIRECTIONS & MEMBERSHIPS From the South - Take Interstate 91 North to Exit 6. Stay on Columbus Avenue to State Street. Turn right, proceed for three blocks and you will see the large, white marble Springfield City Library building on your left. Take the first left past the library onto Elliot Street and then the next left onto Edwards Street. From the East - Take the Massachusetts Turnpike to Exit 6 (I-291). Exit at Dwight Street (Exit 2B), turn left. Follow Dwight to State Street. Turn left at the light, go through another light and you will see the large, white marble Springfield City Library building on your left. Take the first left past the library onto Elliot Street and then the next left onto Edwards Street. From the West - Take the Massachusetts Turnpike to Interstate 91 South and follow I-91 South to Exit 7. Turn left on State Street, proceed for three blocks and you will see the large, white marble Springfield City Library building on your left. Take the first left past the library onto Elliot Street and then the next left onto Edwards Street. Parking: Free parking is available in the lots on Edwards Street. To Download Printable Directions go to http://www.springfieldmuseums.org/about/hours.php NOT A MEMBER YET ? The Pioneer Valley Aquarium Society, Inc. is a not for profit educational group. We meet the first Tuesday of each month, except July and August, at the Springfield Science Museum. Meetings start at 7:00 PM and include refreshments. Club news and activities are discussed and planned, and an educational program or speaker is presented, followed by a mini-auction. The general public is welcome at our meetings and is encouraged to see what fish-keeping is all about. The Pioneer Valley Aquarium Society, Inc. is affiliated with the Northeast Council of Aquarium Societies, Inc. PIONEER VALLEY AQUARIUM SOCIETY, INC. - MEMBERSHIP FORM To join the Pioneer Valley Aquarium Society, please contact Don Hennemann [email protected]. Rates are $15.00 for a single membership and $20.00 for a family membership Name: Address: City: Telephone: Email Address: State: Zip Code: