AKA convention 2005

[wcknight]

Hi folks,

it's been a long time since my last post. not much going on with my killies until the last week or so.

I attended the 2005 convention at least for a couple of sessions anyway. I had other things on my schedule so I was only available for Friday evening and Saturday morning.

The big problem was I did NOT bring a camera to either session, so sorry no photos to post. Maybe the AKA site will have some photos of the show.

Being to my first tropical fish show of any type, I was really in new territory here and it showed. Combined with my busy weekend schedule, I missed out on few things, the biggest of which was the viewing of the show entries.

It turns out that Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening were really the only times you could view the show entries.

Friday evening I was able to sit on one of the lectures about Killies in Brazil and Conservation by Andre Costella (sp?). It was quite interesting and it was taped so it will be available on cassette or DVD from the AKA. (they have recordings of their other AKA convention lectures dating back to 2001. they cost around $20 US)

Saturday morning, I was able to attend the fish sale, which was quite an experience. They had everyone numbered so you could only get in at your allotted times, and not knowing this, I naturally showed up too late for the first round and too early for the second round.

So I waited for my turn in the second round, and luckily there were many species left for sale. There was a 2 bag limit for round 2, so I pick out one pair of N Rubinpinnis (sp?) and one pair of gold Australes. I was totally unprepared for any sort of sale and so this was pretty much impulse shopping. The prices were very reasonable ($8 and $9) per pair and the specimens were in great shape.

I waited around for round 3 and again there were plenty of fish left (at least for my very limited selection criteria, which was get anything that I thought would be easy to maintain and care for )

Being really creative, I proceeded to pick out a second pair of each of my first round. My logic being that IF I happened to kill off one of the first pair, I would have another male or female available, instead of just a single sex.


There were some more exotic species there in the 25 to $30 a pair range but being a beginner, I passed them up not wishing to kill off any rare or soon to be extinct species (plus I didn't have the tanks set up for them -yet.)

Overall I was really happy with the purchases I had, and the fish are doing really well... so far.

With the Australes, I happened to put them in a tank with a bunch of snails, so I am now in the process of terminating the snails with a solution of "Had a Snail". hopefully this does not manage to kill off the killies along with the snails.


(continued)

[wcknight]

Also at the show, I met AKA artist Ken McKeighen and purchased a couple of his drawings (4 by 6 inch), and ordered a larger original (8 by 10).

He was won numerous AKA awards and I thought his works were really at quite a bargain price ($20 for the 4x6 and $60 for the 8x10).

It's not too often you can get an original work of art for $60 !

I only got to glance into the show room, and even then only got a peek at some of the blue Gularis on display. There were a lot of entries, the room was about 20 by 40 feet with about 4 tiers of small tanks along all four wall and 4 tiers on 2 side in a center island.

They did not let folks into the show room until after the judging, which went on until after I had left Saturday morning. I dropped by briefly Sunday morning, BUT they had already bagged up most of the show entries to get ready for the noon auction. I had to miss that also, because I had other commitments for the day. (NOT that I would have bid on anything, but I would have liked to experience a fish auction and seen some of the specimens)

Overall, I thought the show was much much smaller than what I had anticipated. I am used to going to these huge conventions for crafts or Jewelry or home shows. The whole show took up about 4 or 5 moderate sized rooms, the largest of which was about 25 by 40 and the smallest was about 15 by 20 (this was the fish sale room).

It was smaller than expected but it was well worth the experience especially since I was able to purchase some killies, and meet some great folks from the AKA.

I was surprised to read that the AKA really only has about 1000 members give or take a couple of hundred, and only about 10 to 20% show up at the annual convention, this show had well over a hundred, but probably not more than 200.

I know that world wide there are many more Killie collectors, but I had thought the AKA was much larger than a thousand.

I did manage to win a prize (a "Lee" siphon set valued at $40) in the raffle, which was a real pleasant surprise.

Next year the show is in Florida, and IF I manage to go, I will bring a camera !!!

I plan to get one with a macro lens soon, so when I do, I will take some photos of the fish I got recently and the pictures that I got from Ken.

take care, Wes

[stormhawk]

That talk on Brazilian killies might have been done by Andre Carletto instead of Costella.

He's a great guy and has spent alot of time out there collecting fish with Dalton, Rogerio and even with Costa.

[wcknight]

That talk on Brazilian killies might have been done by Andre Carletto instead of Costella.

He's a great guy and has spent alot of time out there collecting fish with Dalton, Rogerio and even with Costa.

Carletto is the correct name, I checked the program when I got home. There is a killie named after him, carlettoi, I forget what genus

[RonWill]

There is a killie named after him, carlettoi, I forget what genus

Wes, welcome back from ya snooze and thanks for posting up your experience at the convention.

That killie, if my guess is correct, could be Simpsonichthys carlettoi... nice looking bugger.

[stormhawk]

Yes its Simpsonichthys carlettoi, a very beautiful species from the magnificus group.

[wcknight]

well, my plans to get rid of the snail also got 'rid' of one pair of the nothos... probably copper poisoning... I did a couple of partial water changes, and I think the others have recovered somewhat.... the nothos are sort of hanging around the bottle of the tank, and are not real active, although they were a bit better later in the evening. Is there some treatment to remove copper or is water changes the best that i can do ??

One of the male gold australes is looking kind of sluggish so it may not make it.

Also, it turns out that the two pairs of gold australes are not quite the same, they are from different breeders, and neither listed the sub-species or location of the originals. One male has dark red markings on its fins and some red spots on the body and a bit of white on the fins (sort of the classic gold Australes that you see in books and on web sites), the other male is completely orange with no markings whatsoever.

I had already put both pairs into the same tank, so I was not sure which female went with which male. One of the females had some brownish color on its body and the other female was lighter color. I put the female with no brownish color in with the solid color male. Both the solid color male and the plain female were a bit larger than the other two, so I figure they may have also been a bit older.

One other thing that I picked up from the convention were 6 of the plastic show display tanks (2.5 gal) with plastic covers. for $6 US each, I thought that was a great price.

regards, Wes

[RonWill]

Also, it turns out that the two pairs of gold australes are not quite the same, they are from different breeders, and neither listed the sub-species or location of the originals. One male has dark red markings on its fins and some red spots on the body and a bit of white on the fins (sort of the classic gold Australes that you see in books and on web sites), the other male is completely orange with no markings whatsoever

Wesley, from what you've described, the AUS you bought might possibly be an assortment of Orange, Spotless and regular browns. If you're not into breeding fishes, that color mixture doesn't matter as these still look nice in a planted tank.

A picture speaks a thousand words and I have an out-dated page, mirrored from a fellow-forumer's site, describing a simple phototank with some half-decent shots of the AUS. Come to think of it, your newly purchased plastic show-tanks can also double as a 'studio'.

For the copper, I suspect activated carbon might work.

[TyroneGenade]

Hi Wes,

Hope I'm not to late help you save your copper poisoned fish...

1st, unless there were Malayan livebearing snails the fish eggs were probably safe and there was no need to kill the snails.

As regards copper toxicity, it is a lot less in harder water so add some Equilibrium (or the like) to the water. The copper will be absorbed by all kinds of stuff in the tank making it VERY difficult to get rid of. A complere tank clean (removing mulm and water changes) are the only way to go about ti.

If you want to be rid of snail rather use a manual or biological method. Chemicals can be nasty and killies do seem a bit sensitive to copper in soft water---which I assume you have else you must of really dosed that tank!

About the gold AUS, do not worry about the slight difference in colour. There are all essentially the same fish. AUS can vary quite a lot in colour and bottlenecks (like buying only 1 pr for breeding) can rapidly lead to only a specific phenotype being present. Breed them and select what looks nicest to you. On http://killies.net there is a pic of wild gold AUS if you insist on a "wild" looking fish, but keep in mind that this fish was probably selected for the photo because it was the nicest looking and so probably does not represent the "natural" state if we consider natural to be the "average wild phenotype."

There is a lot of colour variation not only as reagards the colour intensity of the spots and their size but the depth of body colour. Some gold AUS look quite insipid while others glow.

If you worry some of th golds may actually be browns have a look at the fins. The fin patterning differs between the gold and brown phenotypes.

Were there any N. furzeri at the AKA show? I'm curious as to whether any of the MOZ 04-13 fish are in circulation from those Watters, Cooper and Morenski had.

Regards

[TyroneGenade]

Hi Wes,

Hope I'm not to late help you save your copper poisoned fish...

1st, unless there were Malayan livebearing snails the fish eggs were probably safe and there was no need to kill the snails.

As regards copper toxicity, it is a lot less in harder water so add some Equilibrium (or the like) to the water. The copper will be absorbed by all kinds of stuff in the tank making it VERY difficult to get rid of. A complere tank clean (removing mulm and water changes) are the only way to go about ti.

If you want to be rid of snail rather use a manual or biological method. Chemicals can be nasty and killies do seem a bit sensitive to copper in soft water---which I assume you have else you must of really dosed that tank!

About the gold AUS, do not worry about the slight difference in colour. There are all essentially the same fish. AUS can vary quite a lot in colour and bottlenecks (like buying only 1 pr for breeding) can rapidly lead to only a specific phenotype being present. Breed them and select what looks nicest to you. On http://killies.net there is a pic of wild gold AUS if you insist on a "wild" looking fish, but keep in mind that this fish was probably selected for the photo because it was the nicest looking and so probably does not represent the "natural" state if we consider natural to be the "average wild phenotype."

There is a lot of colour variation not only as reagards the colour intensity of the spots and their size but the depth of body colour. Some gold AUS look quite insipid while others glow.

If you worry some of th golds may actually be browns have a look at the fins. The fin patterning differs between the gold and brown phenotypes.

Were there any N. furzeri at the AKA show? I'm curious as to whether any of the MOZ 04-13 fish are in circulation from those Watters, Cooper and Morenski had.

Regards

[wcknight]

By the time I got there there were no N. furzeri in the fish sale room. I completely missed the first round (not knowing how the fish sale worked), AND I did not get to see the show display competition at all.

There may have been some in the first round or there may have been some on display.

There were plenty of N. Rubripinnis and N. Palmqviste, but not much of any other nothos as I recall.... no Rachovii and no Guntheri, as I might have gotten some of these if they were available.



It looks as the copper crisis is over with, the remaining fish are doing well (3 pairs in all). They are growing on a diet of FD tubifex and live grindal worms.

No eggs yet, which was surprising as I would have expected the Australes to get started right away. They look mature enough to breed. The Australes are in a heavily planted tank with corkscrew val and Java moss.


regards Wes