Male Dwarf Cooper Mouth-Brooder (Pseudocrenilabrus philander disperses) Picture by Fred Allen

Transcription

1 First Quarter, 2015 Male Dwarf Cooper Mouth-Brooder (Pseudocrenilabrus philander disperses) Picture by Fred Allen Table of Contents Who We Are / BOD & Committee Chairs 2-3 PIJAC: New York Invasive Species Regulations 4-5 DAAS Breeders Award Program (BAP) 5-6 Article: Spawning the Dwarf Cooper Mouth-Brooder Pseudocrenilabrus 7-11 philander disperses Fishy Word Search: Puzzle #1: Sounds Fishy To Me 12 DAASwords: Answers for Puzzle #2 It s A Zoo in Here! 13 Upcoming Events /Our Supporters Gills N Gossip 1 st Quarter,

2 Gills N Gossip is published four times per year for free distribution to members, advertisers, exchanges, and hobby distributors and publishers. The material it contains may not be distributed by computer bulletin boards nor reprinted by profit making organizations without prior written permission of the author. The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the society members, its Officers or Board of Directors. Editorial Policy: All fish, plant, and other hobby related material will be considered for publication. The preferred method of delivery for articles is via in MS WORD or Text format to BROMEO1234@optonline.net. Alternate means of submitting may be arranged by contacting the Editor. Articles the Editors deems inappropriate will not be published. Original articles may be reprinted by other nonprofit hobby organizations with the following stipulations: 1. Gills N Gossip is credited as the original Publisher. 2. The article is reprinted in its original form. 3. The original author is credited appropriately. 4. An author s copy is provided to the Editor at the time of distribution of the reprint. Contact or BRomeo1234@optonline.net DAAS Background Information: Established in 1986, the Danbury Area Aquarium Society (DAAS) is a non-profit organization serving the Hudson Valley Area, Westchester, Fairfield and Litchfield Counties of New York and Connecticut. DAAS is a member of the Northeast Council of Aquarium Societies (NEC), a member of the Federation of American Aquarium Societies (FAAS), and C.A.R.E.S. preservation program. General meetings are held the 4 th Friday of the month (except July & December) at Laura Sprain Memorial Cornerstone Park, 1 Fair Street in Carmel, NY. General meetings normally begin with a brief business meeting followed by a guest speaker, refreshments, door and raffle prizes and a mini-auction of live fish, plants and other hobby related items. DAAS Website: DAAS Facebook: umsociety?ref=hl General Meeting DAAS Shirt Special Exchanges: DAAS will exchange publications with any nonprofit hobby related organization with the following stipulations: 1. The request to exchange must be made in writing or The organization informs us of their reprint policy. 3. The exchange is mailed (or ed) to the Gills N Gossip Exchange Editor upon publication. Advertising Rates in Gill N Gossip (for 1 year): Business Card: $25; ¼ page: $50; ½ page: $75; Full page: $100. Tees: $5.00 Polo: $10.00 See Joe Masi for availability. Gills N Gossip 1 st Quarter,

3 DAAS Board Of Directors / Committee Chairs 2015: Chairman: Rich Litsky circledr@verizon.net Co-Chairman: Joe Masi daas@northeastcouncil.org Treasurer: Joe Dinho joedinho@yahoo.com Director: Basil Holubis caminokid2@msn.com Director: Fran Masi Franc21Alliance@optonline.net Director: Dick Moore rjmoore49@msn.com Director: Leslie Dick ldick@comcast.net Director: Barbara Romeo Bromeo1234@optonline.net Director: David Schwartz airborneparrot52762@gmail.com Advertising / Publicity.David Schwartz C.A.R.E.S.....Leslie Dick Membership. Joe Masi Breeders Award Program..Leslie Dick Auction.....Joe Masi Newsletter... Barbara Romeo Programs.. Basil Holubis Raffle.... Basil Holubis Recording Secretary....Fran Masi Refreshments Basil Holubis /Joe Masi Setup & Breakdown...Rich Litsky Sunshine Fran Masi Webmaster.. Joe Masi NEC Delegate. Barbara Romeo NEC alt. Delegate... Fran Masi FAAS representative..joe Masi Gills N Gossip 1 st Quarter,

4 New York Invasive Species Regulations Effective The Department Of Agriculture and the Department of Conservation have implemented a new list of prohibited and regulated species. This article will address fish, aquatic vertebrates and plants only. For the complete listing and more information go to updates/new- york- invasive- species- regulations- effective- march Prohibited invasive species cannot be knowingly possessed with the intent to sell, import, purchase, transport or introduce into the environment. In addition, no person shall sell, import, purchase, transport, introduce or propagate prohibited invasive species. At this point, NYS is not requiring that homeowners dispose of prohibited plants already in their ponds. NYS DEC Prohibited Fish: Channa argus, Northern Snakehead also prohibited by Federal Law Channa marulius, Bullseye Snakehead also prohibited by Federal Law Channa micropeltes, Giant Snakehead also prohibited by Federal Law Gambusia affinis, Western Mosquitofish Gambusia holbrooki, Eastern Mosquitofish Misgurnus anguillicaudatus, Oriental weatherfish, Japanese weather loach, Dojo loach Tinca tinca, Tench Channa micropeltes Orconectes rusticus, Rusty Crayfish Prohibited Aquatic Plants (Check the entire list if handling plants): Cabomba carolina, Fanwort, Green, Green Cabomba Egeria densa, Anacharis Iris pseudacoris, Yellow Iris Myriophyllum aquaticum, Parrot- feather Myriophyllum heterophyllum, Red Myrio Trapa natans, Water chestnut Regulated invasive species, on the other hand, are species which cannot be knowingly introduced into a free- living state, or introduced by a means that one should have known would lead to such an introduction, although such species shall be legal to possess, sell, buy, propagate and transport. (Free- living state is a species is considered in a free- living state if it is introduced to public lands or lands connected to public lands, natural areas, Gills N Gossip 1 st Quarter,

5 and public waters or waters connected to public waters.) All Regulated" fish and animals sold in NYS must be labeled Invasive Species Harmful to the Environment in at least 14- pt bold type attached to the containers housing live animals and attached to the plants. The labels must be approved by the Department of Agriculture and Markets and shall offer alternative non- invasive species as well as instructions to care for the animals or plants in a way to prevent their spread by being introduced into a free- living state. NYS DEC Regulated Fish & Aquatic Vertebrates: - Carassius auratus Goldfish all varieties - Cyprinus carpio - Koi all varieties - Pterois miles & Pterois volitans Lionfish only these 2 species - Xenopus laevis - African Clawed Frog To the right is the Goldfish and the Koi approved labels. For an Avery file or pdf file of the regulated labels please go to: Editor s note: excerpt from NEC March, 2015 newsletter DAAS BREEDERS AWARD PROGRAM Leslie Dick This year s BAP program is off to a running start! Bill Cole and Artie Platt have 13 new species among them, with one CARES species represented with Artie s submission of C. encaustus. Tom Sands, Fred Allen, and Barry Lynch have 5 species among themselves, bringing our First Quarter submissions up to 20! Most species are cichlids, with a smattering of invertebrates, two livebearers, and the rest being egg-laying species. I can t wait to see what species will make an appearance in our second quarter! Bill Cole 7 species Scientific Name Common Name Boraras maculatus Spotted Rasbora Clea helena Assassin Snails Neocaridinia denticulata Red Cherry Shrimp Ivanacara adoketa Zebra Acara Cryptoheros nanoluteus Yellow Cichlid Barbus barilioides Blue-barred Barb Mikrogeophagus ramirezi Electric Blue Ram Gills N Gossip 1 st Quarter,

6 Artie Platt 6 species Scientific Name Common Name Lepidiolamropogus hecqui Hecq s Lamprologus Chapalichthys encaustus Barred Splitfn Goodeid * Herotilapia mutispinosa Rainbow Cichlid Herichthys carpintis Pearlscale Cichlid Oryzias woworae Daisy s Ricefish Aulonocara stuartgranti Ntekete Tom Sands 3 species Scientific Name Hemichromis lifalili Neolamprologus multifasciatus Julidochromis marlieri Burundi Common Name Blood Red Jewel Cichlid Multies Marlier s Julie Fred Allen 1 species Scientific Name Moenkhausia naponis Common Name Napo Tetra Barry Lynch 1 species Scientific Name Zoogoneticus purhepechus Common Name LaLuz Splitfin Goodeid *CARES species Thank you to Fred Allen and Leslie Dick for contributions to this edition of the DAAS newsletter. Do not forget to keep the articles and pictures coming! Barbara at BRomeo1234@optonline.net for inclusion in our next quarterly edition! Gills N Gossip 1 st Quarter,

7 In the Fishroom Dwarf Cooper Mouth-Brooder Pair (Pictures by Fred Allen) Spawning The Dwarf Copper Mouth- Brooder Pseudocrenilabrus philander disperses by Fred Allen 2014, I attended the North Jersey Aquarium Society s spring auction. I drove down from the Catskill Mountains in upstate N.Y with fellow DAAS member Bill Cole. Once in NJ, we made a quick pit stop at a fish store called Kazimir s pet shop in Hackensack. The store was brought to our attention years ago by another DAAS member. If you ever get the chance, stop by this store, you won t be disappointed. Friendly owners with a nice selection of fish, plants and live foods. The store reminds me of when I was growing up and the way things use to be. It just has that special atmosphere and feel. Bill and I always try to make time to check out Kazimir s while in NJ. Anyway, off to the fish auction and how I obtained the Dwarf Copper Mouth Brooder. Being a characin fan, I was looking to bid on some tetras at the auction. I ve found some nice tetras there before so I was hoping my luck would hold up. Unfortunately this was not to be the case this time. I found no characins that interested me or that I Gills N Gossip 1 st Quarter,

8 already didn t have. My attention shifted to other tropical fish. Being a runner that day for North Jersey, gave me an up close look at the fish to be auctioned off. I came across a bag marked Haplochromis multicolor, Translation: Egyptian-Mouth brooder. I was surprised to see these fish. Never in my 38 years as an aquarist have I ever seen them for sale. I remember as a youth reading about them in Dr. Innes s book Exotic Aquarium Fishes. Those days they were in the genus Haplochromis, today its Pseudocrenilabrus. There were nine juvenile mouth brooders in the bag up for auction; all were less than 1 inch long. I decided to bid on them. My wallet was fat and I wasn t about to go home empty handed. When they came up for auction bidding was fierce for a brief moment, until the other bidder backed off. I just then realized why the other bidder backed off, that s because we were both DAAS members bidding against each other (large room). You feel for someone that you know; if they really want something, you let them have it. It s the right thing to do. The other DAAS member realizing the situation before myself; beat me to the punch, leaving me as the winning bidder for the Egyptian mouth brooders. We were both on the same page after we made eye contact! I m sure you all can relate to what I m trying to express. We had a good time at North Jersey s auction, seeing many fellow tropical fish hobbyists while attending the event. It was nice to interact with other hobbyists. I feel this is what it s truly all about, being with others that share your passion for the hobby. If you never attended any of our NEC club auctions, you re really missing out. I recommend that you do so. You won t be disappointed. After the auction we checked out some other fish stores before heading home. While on the return ride, Bill turned to me and said, I see you bought those Egyptian mouth brooders. I said yes, why? He stated that he found them a few years ago, but lost the male, but still has a female. Bill said, Well, when they grow out for you, maybe I can get a male. I said no problem, after all I did have 9 juveniles and there must be a few of each sex? Arriving home, I placed all nine into a previously set up 10 gallon aquarium. I fed them live foods, along with massive water changes. It wasn t long before the larger fry started to get some color. I use the word fry because they were all colorless and different sizes when I first obtained them. This puzzled me, why they were all different sizes, but in the months to follow I would soon realize why. As summer rolled along so did my suspicions on whether these Egyptian mouth brooders were just that --- Egyptian! Doing my homework, and quite frankly just plain looking at what was growing in my aquarium, I realized that these were not the mouth brooders as was labeled in the auction. As they grew, I would eventuality identify them as Pseudocrenilabrus philander disperses (a.k.a., DWARF COPPER MOUTH BROODER). An African mouth brooder from South Africa, not from the Northeast part Gills N Gossip 1 st Quarter,

9 of the continent where Egypt is located. Hence, welcome the dwarf copper mouthbrooder to the fish room. Similar in size to the H. multicolor (2-3 long) the P. philander dispersus has much more color, especially in the males. Red along the dorsal fin ray and a spot in the anal fin. Bluish coloring also mixes in the fins, with a solid copper color on the sides of the main body. Females in comparison are drab in color, plain gray and smaller in size. I did notice that females would get some yellow in the fins when holding fry. THE SPAWNING SET UP I now moved all 9 young adult Dwarf Copper mouth brooders to a 20-gallon long aquarium. The sexes would turn out to be 4 males with 5 females. Sorry Bill, no male H. multicolor. I used sand substrate and made/placed numerous caves in the form of bluestone I had laying around the fish room from my Angelfish breeding days (back in the 1980 s & 1990 s) (it s amazing what us fish people will hold onto over the years, LOL). I also added some Java Ferns for looks; I think more for my likening than theirs. Water parameters were not demanding at all. My aged tap water along with the sand substrate and bluestone gave them a ph of 7.6 and a general hardness of 8 degrees at the time. Aquarium water temperature was 77 F, it was July at the time (I seldom use heaters). Feeding live foods on a daily basis, especially summer time mosquito larvae, it wasn t long before the young males were digging pits in the substrate and looking for love. THE SPAWN Unfortunately, I never did witness the actual spawning. Coming home from work one day, I saw that one of the females was holding. The tank looked like an excavator rolled thru, male s digging their sand pits. Sand was everywhere, on top of the blue stone caves, Java Ferns and sponge filter. It was the sand that actually caught my eye while working in the fish room, which led me to noticing a female was holding. I decided to remove the holding female and place her in a 2.5 gallon tank. I used the same water from the breeding tank to set up the 2.5 gallon. I placed some sand and a cave with a little Java Moss as a comfort setting for the holding female. I checked daily on the holding female with a temp of 76 F. I thought it would be around day 10 she would release her fry, according to everything I read? (Note: don t believe everything you read) While waiting, a few days later, I noticed a second female was also holding, and set up another maternity tank in the same manner as the first expecting mother to be. Gills N Gossip 1 st Quarter,

10 Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, day 10 came and went, no release, for the first female holding. The whole time she refused to eat while holding. I read about this, but wanted to test/see for myself if these claims are real/valid? I offered a few live mosquito larvae and Grindal worms to both holding females. Nothing doing, they would not eat, but I must admit the Grindal worms wriggling on the sand drove them nuts from my observation. On the 17 th day the first female released her fry. Four in total, that s right 4. I too was expecting a whole lot more. What I wasn t expecting was how large they were going to be. Over ¼ long at release. They easily took baby brine shrimp on day one. Fry were 4 times the body mass of a new born baby guppy, or 50 times the body mass of a characin larva fry! Largest fry I ever saw in all my years in the hobby. I think I fed them sifted Grindal worms when they were 10 days old? Big fry. Female with fry Dwarf Cooper Mouth-Brooder The second female released 3 fry on day 21. For a total of 7 fry for the 2 females combined. 1 fry was crippled and only lived 2 days, which left 6 fry. These 6 fry from 2 separate spawns were easily raised and submitted to DAAS for BAP on Gills N Gossip 1 st Quarter,

11 Female with fry Dwarf Cooper Mouth-Brooder I now know why the 9 juveniles I obtained in the spring auction were of different sizes. That s because Pseudocrenilabrus philander disperses (a.k.a., DWARF COPPER MOUTH BROODER) only have a few offspring at a time and it takes a few spawns to fill a bag for auction. If the previous breeder had the same results I did, that would mean 2 or 3 spawns to fill an auction bag? Just a thought / my opinion? Then, during writing this article, I was able to attend DAAS s February monthly meeting. A member approached me and said Pseudocrenilabrus philander disperses. I replied, Dwarf Copper Mouth Brooder. This member/ breeder said, yes. I said, I keep those. The person said, I know, I bought your BAP fry from December s auction. I asked how they were doing and the member replied, great, they just spawned and the female released 17 fry. Go figure? So much for my theory of small broods. This breeder was amazed by just the opposite, how many fry were released! A fast growing and easy to spawn Dwarf African Mouth-Brooder, Pseudocrenilabrus philander disperses (a.k.a., Dwarf Copper Mouth Brooder). The little Mouth Brooder with a big name and a bigger surprise on the amount of fry released. Time to feed the fish. Enjoy the hobby everyone, the hobby that lasts a lifetime! Sincerely, FRED ALLEN Danbury Area Aquarium Society, March 7 th, 2015 Gills N Gossip 1 st Quarter,

12 Fishy Word Search by Leslie Dick Puzzle #1: Sounds Fishy To Me GILLS NITROGENCYCLE PLANTED AQUARIUM NEONTETRA JEWEL CICHLIDS HYPANCISTRUS BREEDER AWARDS CARES SUBSTRATE DRIFTWOOD FILTRATION CHERRY BARB RED SHRIMP NERITE SNAILS ANUBIAS NANA AMAZON SWORD PLANT FILTER LINEAR PISTON PUMP CANNISTER LIVEBEARERS GOODEIDS KILLIEFISH BRACKISH MOSCOW BLACK GUPPIES MICROWORMS BLACKWORMS SCUBS SYNDONTIS Gills N Gossip 1 st Quarter,

13 Answers for Puzzle #2 It s A Zoo in Here! Gills N Gossip 1st Quarter,

14 Upcoming DAAS, NEC & Regional Events 2015 Apr AGA Convention (link) NECA Spring Auction (flyer) NJAS Giant Spring Auction (flyer) PVAS All Day Spring Action (flyer) BAS Breeder s Auction (link) DAAS Monthly Meeting CNYAS Annual Auction (flyer) 2 Q NEC BOG Meeting (CC) Aug GCAS Silent Auction 3 Q NEC BOG (SHS) NEC Summer Auction DAAS Monthly Meeting May ALA 2015 Convention hosted by ACLC (link) (ALA website) (flyer) BASNY Giant Spring Auction (flyer) OVAS Spring Auction (flyer) NEAq Tour hosted by BAS (link) DAAS Monthly Meeting AKA 2015 Convention (link) Sep TFSRI Show & Auction DAAS Monthly Meeting CCY Clash of the Cichlids Show 3 (link) (flyer) 3 Q NEC General Meeting (CC) Jun Q NEC General Meeting (CC) DAAS Monthly Meeting Oct BASNY Giant Fall Auction DAAS Monthly Meeting TFCB Giant Auction Jul - Aug 30 2 ACA 2015 Convention hosted by NECA (link) (flyer) Nov Aquatic Experience Q NEC BOG Meeting (CC) DAAS Monthly Meeting *NEC meetings are held at NOON (unless otherwise noted) (SHS) Sheraton Hartford South hotel (CC) Conference Call Dec 6 4 Q NEC General Meeting & Annual (SHS) Proud member of: Gills N Gossip 1 st Quarter,

15 Our Supporters Gills N Gossip 1 st Quarter,