Newb Report from the ALA

[PineSong]

There's a first time for everything and tonight was my first time at a fish convention. The ALA/ACA/NA-ANGFA Aquatic Triple Crown is being held thru Sunday in Louisville KY which is a stone's throw for me so I headed over after work.

I was looking forward to seeing lots of fish, but they were not on display yet during the time I was there today; I'm going to go back over the weekend to make sure I can see them all.

I did go to the field trip to Rusty Wessel's Fish House. His indoor collection is focused on cichlids and wild-type livebearers, so I confess I was mentally restocking some of his megatanks with colorful guppies and platies as I took it all in. Shhhh.

His outdoor koi ponds were glorious and also featured mollies that were easily 1.5x the length and 4x the chubbiness of mine--they were absolute blimps. His plants were also fantastic.

It was a beautiful setting and very gracious of Rusty to let busloads of people visit and gather.

I'm looking forward to seeing the convention show and sale/auction fish over the weekend. I don't think I will try to bring home any fish, but never say never! 

Goodie bag and koi pond from today:

 

 

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by PineSong

[Fish Folk]

Keep sharing! Tuesday afternoon I bought three trios of Nothobranchius rachovii Biera 98 African annual soil-spawning killifish from a guy headed there, driving across half a dozen states with coolers full of Killis and live bearers…

[PineSong]

On 7/28/2022 at 9:57 AM, Fish Folk said:

Keep sharing! Tuesday afternoon I bought three trios of Nothobranchius rachovii Biera 98 African annual soil-spawning killifish from a guy headed there, driving across half a dozen states with coolers full of Killis and live bearers…

That is a great looking fish!

[PineSong]

I went back to the convention today, and it was partly great and partly quite disappointing.

I attended a talk by Karl Trochu about his breeding of fancy swordtails and platies in his outdoor fish room. It was a great presentation and the fish featured in his slides were beyond amazing. He emphasized that he culls fiercely and it shows. You can see what his results are on his YouTube channel , shown below.

Karl's talk was the highlight of the convention for me because he breeds colorful and fancy varieties. Lots of respect to all the folks who breed and preserve wild types of fish, but....I like crazy color and sparkle, and a lot of the convention seemed to focus on small gray fish. So that talk was a treat for me. 

After the presentation I walked through the vendor and show room where fish were judged. The vendor area was tightly packed and crowded with shoppers. I thought prices were great and I bought some botanicals I'd never seen before;"palm curls". I think my shrimp will like them. 

The show displays are where the disappointment came in 😞 In the small tanks where livebearers were being displayed for judging, many did not have air or filters and several housed fish that were dead or dying. I did not understand the decision-making since each tank had a sponge filter in it that could have been hooked up as airlines were available as part of the display. None of the fish had so much as a sprig of guppy grass for cover or grazing.

I've been to a million horse and dog shows and there would be an uproar there if animals were being kept in a miserable state; yet people were walking by these fish tanks as if nothing was wrong. 

Another disappointment were how few fish were present, especially in the livebearer area and especially fancy/colorful varieties. I'm pretty sure I've seen more livebearers at the state fair, although I am sure the fair does not feature so many unusual or wild-type varieties. A couple of my favorites were the four-spot Merry Widows, (Phallichthys quadripunctatus) and the Red Kohaku Mosaic guppies, photos below.

Overall, I appreciate the tremendous amount of work involved in hosting the convention and I recognize that it's probably all being done by volunteers. I've planned much smaller conferences and know how challenging those are without the logistics of fish display, water needs, etc. so it feels grumpy to complain at all, but I think we have to do better when it comes to displaying the fish in ways that minimize distress and reduce fatalities. 

 

 

[Patrick_G]

Thanks for the update. The Swordtail talk sounds interesting. I’m a big fan of fancy swordtails. 
 

It too bad the show tanks were sub par. I can’t help but compare your description of those tanks with the recent thread of pics from the Vienna guppy show where all the tanks appear to have some plants and an airstone. 

[PineSong]

On 7/30/2022 at 9:40 PM, Patrick_G said:

Thanks for the update. The Swordtail talk sounds interesting. I’m a big fan of fancy swordtails. 
 

It too bad the show tanks were sub par. I can’t help but compare your description of those tanks with the recent thread of pics from the Vienna guppy show where all the tanks appear to have some plants and an airstone. 

Thanks for drawing my attention to that thread! Yes, it’s a stark contrast. This is one of the least distressing photos I took today: