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CCAC logo design by Hedy Padgett

“Dedicated to the art of Fishing Without a Hook!”

Fancy Fins Volume XIV, Issue 2 - April/June 2009

In This Issue:

President’s Message ........................................... 1

Picture of the Month........................................... 1

From the Publisher’s Desk ................................. 3

CCAC Club Happenings .................................... 3

BAP/Specialist Report ....................................... 4

BAP/HAP Standings .......................................... 4

ALA Followup……………………………..…..5-8

Betta Channoides ............................................... 9

Red Worms……………………………………...10

Skiffia multipunctata……………………………11

Species 44………….……………………………11

Apistogramma agassizi………………………….12

Spawning Otopharnyx lithobates……………….13

Neolamprologus brichardi………………………14

Pantanodon stuhlmanni…………………...…15-16

Re-visiting Nanachromis nudiceps………….17-19

Supporters of CCAC ................................…….19

Cincinnati 2009 ACA .......................................20

Corydorus aneus (Albino) ...........................…..21

Standing Committee ..........................................22

Plan a Road Trip ...............................................22

CCAC Board of Directors .................................22

CCAC Membership Application........................24

President’s Message

Picture of the Month

Hi All, I hope everyone is having a good summer. This month we have a special double issue, mainly as a tribute to my lack of time during April with the ALA convention. Since then I’ve had knee surgery and am now recovering nicely. So I’m ready to get back into the swing of things, time to get the brine shrimp bubblin and get the fish spawnin! Now that ALA is out of the way I finally have time to breathe! It was a great convention. The speakers were awesome and we had a great time putting it on. I hope those of you who missed the opportunity will come join us...next time…. Yes, it was a lot of work, but I think I would be willing to do it again. Maybe in 4 years or so. We have a lot of great speakers coming up for the rest of the year, so be sure to check in on the website for what’s coming up. I’m also looking forward to a great auction here in June. Hopefully there will be a lot of cool species to choose from. I’ve been itching to change some things around for a while now.

Mike Matthews, CCAC President

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Cryptoheros cutteri with eggs Photo by Charley Grimes

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15% discount to all CCAC Members Must show current Membership Card

We accept Mastercard and Visa Only No Personal checks

PROVIDING ONE OF THE LARGEST SELECTIONS OF REEF, TROPICAL FISH,

& AFRICAN CICHLIDS IN INDIANA

Marine live rock and corals Live freshwater plants, driftwood, decorative rock

And general aquarium supplies!

Hours Mon – Fri 12 N- 8 P Sat 10A- 7P Sun 12N- 6P

317-253-9695

5613 N Keystone Ave. Indianapolis, IN 46220

The Reef

“Indy’s only Aquatic Specialty Shop”

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Upcoming Meetings and Speakers July Mark Denaro Bettas and Other Anabantoids August Karl Doehring Nothobranchius Killies September Dave Hemmerlein TBD October Rick Perez Cichlid Topic TBD November Rick Borstein The Road to Master Breeder: Tips and Tech-niques for Spawning Cichlids Summer Auction June 28th, 2009 Clarion Waterfront Hotel Winter Auction November 15th, 2009 Clarion Waterfront Hotel

CCAC Club HAppenings

From the Publisher’s Desk… Hello! And welcome to the DOUBLE ISSUE of Fancy Fins! This was quite a trip to put to-gether, but it was an excellent place to use some of the longer articles that have been submitted. Some of these are a year or more (with emphasis to the more) old.

I had wondered where and how I would get to use them as they were so long, but Mike gave the per-fect opportunity with this double-sized issue., or I am not sure some of these would have ever seen print.

I have been busy getting ready to move a few fish and plants outside where mother nature will take care of them for me.

I hope to get the chance to get to a meeting or the auction, but the summer softball season is keeping me on the diamond. Since the beginning of the year, I have been involved wither as in charge of or umpiring more than 300 games already and expect that many more in the next two months.

So, if I do not get to see any of you this summer, remember that I am keeping you all in mind and hope that your fish are doing well and you and your families are doing even better.

Russ

The Circle City Aquarium Club meets on the first Thursday of every month at the Garfield Park Conservatory (2450 South Shelby Street, Indianapolis, IN) from 7:30 - 10:30 PM.

Meetings include a speaker or workshop program, a mini-auction, a mini bowl show, a raffle, and door prizes. Visi-tors are encouraged to attend. Participation in the mini-auction, bowl show, and raffle are limited to members only. Membership signup is also available. Come visit us at the CCAC club website where hobbyists can interact between general meetings. Registration for the website is free.

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BAP Specialist Rankings

Master Specialist Mike Matthews Invertebrate (14) Senior Specialist Charley Grimes African Cichlid (31), Livebearer (29), Minnow (9) Don Blankenship African Cichlid (48), Dustin Stonebraker Livebearer (42) Joe Fleckenstein Catfish (11), African Cichlid (29) Karen and Kelli Mitchell Characins (15), Other Cyprinids (10) Rainbows (10), Rasboras (3) Mike Matthews Livebearer (34), Other Cyprinid (8), African Cichlid (26) Specialist Bill Flowers Livebearer (11), African Cichlid (10) Bob Hargis Anabantoid (8) Charley Grimes Barb (5), Mop Spawn Killie (20), Other (4), Rasbora (1), Soil Spawn. Killie (9), Rainbow (9), S. American Cich. (11), Brackish Marine (2) Other cyprinid (4), Other (4) Dustin Stonebraker Invertebrate (4) Fani Gunawan Invertebrate (3), African Cichlid (20) Hedy Padgett Invertebrate (3) Jana Strathmann Invertebrate (3) Jeff Webb Invertebrate (3) Jen Ford Invertebrate (3) Joe Fleckenstein Barb (5), Livebearer (22), Rainbow (9), Other Cyprinid (4), S. Amer. Cichlid (13) Kelli & Ryan Barton Invertebrate (3), Rasbora (1) Kevin Hon Barb (4), Other Cyprinid (4) Les & Becky Mumford African Cichlid (17) Linda Mullinex Invertebrate (3) Mike Matthews Barb (5), Characin (6), Catfish (6) Minnow (3), Rainbow (7),

Breeder

Jeff Webb - 120 pts Michael Shockley - 115 pts Jana Strathmann - 95 pts Brian Lovins - 95 pts Ron Smith - 65 pts Lacey Bacon - 50 pts

Currently working on

awards Rob Renfro - 90 pts Jaryl Harrison - 70 pts Brian Nannenga - 65 pts Dan Claassen - 50 pts Walter Perkins - 45 pts Heather Liden - 40 pts Amanda Prabhakaran - 20 pts Jen Ford - 15 pts Shawn Flowers - 10 pts Matt Doublestein - 10 pts Justin Riley - 10 pts Eric Keith - 10 pts William Childs - 5 pts Patricia Boelte - 5 pts

All Around Breeder

Joe Fleckenstein

Master Breeder Charley Grimes - 1405 pts Mike Matthews - 1370 pts Joe Fleckenstein - 1220 pts Don Blankenship - 780 pts Dustin Stonebraker - 680 pts

Senior Breeder

Karen and Kelli - 410 pts Mitchell Fani Gunawan - 390 pts Bob Hargis - 350 pts Bill Flowers - 335pts Hedy Padgett - 285 pts Gary Grissom - 275 pts Les & Becky Mumford - 245 pts Dave McKane - 225 pts Linda Mullinex - 180 pts Joe Jensen - 180 pts Kevin Hon - 175 pts Kelli & Ryan Barton - 175 pts

BAP Standings (As of July 7, 2008)

2008 HAP Report

Specialist Aquatic Gardner: Jennifer Ford - 770 points

Senior Aquatic Gardener: Mike Matthews - 420 points

Ryan and Kelli Barton - 305 points

Advanced Aquatic Gardener Dustin Stonebreaker - 235 points

Working on their awards:

Bill Flowers - 70 points Brian Lovins - 25 points

Fancy Fins is the official publication of the Circle City Aquarium Club, Inc. and is published a minimum of six

times per year. Reprints of any article contained herein is granted,

provided the usage of same does not result in monetary gain and two (2) copies showing usage are returned to:

Circle City Aquarium Club

4816 E. 64th St. Indianapolis, IN 46220

Views of the authors are not necessarily those of this publication, editor, nor the Circle City Aquarium Club.

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Vern Parish Fundraiser Summary

Club total Donation $480 Auction Donations $992 Reception $650 Additionally Jim Langhammer donated

around 20 pairs of Skiffia francesae which were sold. I do not have the exact amount, but it was in excess of $1000

Someone corrupted one of our speakers with a cichlid shirt. I wonder who that could have been…….

Nichole tells Hedy who’s boss.

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1. Guppy - Male, Solid Color Tail, Delta Tail sponsored by Stan Domanowski -1st- Jeremy Phillips -2nd-Scott Arney -3rd- Gary McIlvaine 2. Guppy - Male, Variegated Color Tail, Delta Tail sponsored by Greater Cincinnati Aquarium Society -1st- none -2nd- none -3rd-none 3. Guppy - Male, Other Tail Types sponsored by Carl Krajniak -1st- Jeff Hiller -2nd- Kenneth Smock -3rd- none 4. Guppy - Female sponsored by Greater Cincinnati Aquarium Society -1st- Jeff Hiller -2nd-Gary McIlvaine -3rd-Rit Forcier 5. Mollies - Domestic Varieties and Hybrids sponsored by Bill Allen -1st-Gerald Schultz -2nd-Gerald Schultz -3rd-Gerald Schultz 6. Mollies - Natural Species (Poecilia genus) sponsored by Greater Cincinnati Aquarium Society

-1st- none -2nd- none -3rd- none 7. Swordtails - Domestic, Com-mon Finnage sponsored by Gordon Reed -1st- DJ Hemmerlein -2nd-Kenneth Smock -3rd-Dave Hemmerlein 8. Swordtails - Domestic, Fancy Finnage sponsored by Bob Cashin -1st- Jeff Hiller -2nd-Jeff Hiller -3rd-Gene Anderson 9. Swordtails – Wild type spon-sored by NELA -1st- Donald Holtgrieve -2nd- Pat Hartman -3rd- Rich Serva 10. Variatus & Platies - Domes-tic:Common Finnage sponsored by Kellee and Karen Mitchell -1st- Dave Williamson -2nd- Owen Wojtkowiak -3rd- none 11. Variatus & Platies - Domes-tic: Fancy Finnage sponsored by Greater Cincinnati Aquarium Society -1st-Owen Wojtkowiak -2nd-Mike Gibbs -3rd-Owen Wojtkowiak

12. Platies - Wild type sponsored by Rich Serva -1st- none -2nd- none -3rd- none 13. Limias sponsored by Dr. David Reznick -1st- Scott Arney -2nd-Bill Allen -3rd- none 14. All other Poeciliid species sponsored by Pat Hartman -1st- Kenneth Smock -2nd- Gary Kukowski -3rd-Alex Barnes 15. Goodeids - Torpedo Body Shape sponsored by Dave Smith -1st- Patrick Miller -2nd- Ken King -3rd- Scott Arney 16. Goodeids - Deep Body Shape sponsored by Indiana Killifish Association -1st- Al Malinak -2nd- Ken King -3rd- Chris Singer 17. All Other Livebearers spon-sored by Joe Fleckenstein -1st- Ken Davis -2nd-Patrick Miller -3rd- Ken Davis

18. Pairs Class - male & female of the same species sponsored by Wayne Toven -1st- Curt Bitterling -2nd- Gerald Schultz -3rd- Frank Grainer 19. Family Class: parents +10 or more fry under 3 months old sponsored by Hedy Padgett -1st- Patrick Miller -2nd- Eric Jacobson -3rd- Gary McIlvaine 20. Livebearer photography sponsored by Gary Kukowski -1st- Barry Heller -2nd- Barry Heller -3rd- Barry Heller Chairman"s Award sponsored by Rit Forcier -awarded to- Jeff Hiller Best Domestic sponsored by Louisville Tropical Fish Fanciers -awarded to- Jeff Hiller Best Goodeid sponsored by Jim "The Hammer" Langhammer -awarded to- Patrick Miller Best Wild-type (other than goodeid) sponsored by Louisville Tropical Fish Fanciers -awarded to-Ken Davis

Fish Show Results

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A very special THANK YOU! To our Sponsors

ALA 2009 is sponsored by Tropical Fish

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. Betta channoides----WOW, what an ordeal!

By Charley Grimes As I look back on what these fish put me thru, I wondered if it was worth it.

Betta channoides is a 1 ½ to two inch fish from Miramar (Borneo). Sometimes called the ‘Poor Man’s Betta

macrostoma’, the Betta channoides is a very good looking fish. Males, when showing their best color, have

a dark red body and red fins, all of the fins, except the dorsal; have black edges and a white border.

All of these colors are strong & vivid----it is a darn good looking fish---and peaceful.

I got a young pair of Betta channoides from CCAC member, Bob Hargis. Bob, who had been selling pairs at

club meetings as well as at various auctions, assured me these fish were a fairly easy mouthbrooder to

spawn----that’s for me!

I put the pair in a 20 gallon high tank where I could what was going to happen with these fish.

Within an hour after tanking these fish, the male colored up and started courting the female.

I fed the pair baby brine shrimp, grindle worms and pulverized flake food.

Within a couple of weeks, the male was holding eggs. I left him in with the female for almost three weeks

and then put him in a 5 ½ tank that had a fair amount of Java Moss & Java Fern.

I about 10 more days the male released 10 or 12 fry.

I pulled the male and started feeding bbs and micro worms.

AT THE END OF 30 DAYS, I HAD ONE FRY THAT SURVIVED!

I had placed the male in a separate tank for a couple of weeks, fed him well, and returned him to the tank

with the female---within a week, the male was carrying eggs again. . I left him in with the female for almost

three weeks and then put him in a 5 ½ tank that had a fair amount of Java Moss & Java Fern.

I about 10 more days the male released 10 or 12 fry.

I pulled the male and started feeding bbs and micro worms.

AT THE END OF 30 DAYS, again I HAD ONE FRY THAT SURVIVED!

Now I had two fry and the pair.

Within two months, I had a repeat of the above routine except this time the male released 20+ fry----and I

raised three fry!

Now, having the pair and a grand total of five fry, ranging from 5 months old to 6 weeks old I bagged all

seven fish and hauled them to a killifish meeting at Mike and Julie Matthews house.

I had Mike and Dustin verify the spawn for BAP, and gave all seven fish to Joe Fleckenstine-----telling

him----“no returns!”

Regarding the opening question, yes, it was worth it-----barely!

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Red Worms

By Al Anderson Chopped Red Worms in my mind are one of the least expensive best fish foods on Earth. When raised in the following manner they are clean, do not contain parasites or smell bad. I use them to condition all of my fish, even the small killifish, by chopping them with a single edge razor blade on a chunk of acrylic. I must admit that once a week I add a few drops of Vita Chem to the chopped worms before feeding. A few years ago I went to visit a worm ranch in Crawfordsville IN, and the elderly gentleman that ran it answered my questions about raising worms by handing me the label from a bag of Purina Worm Chow. He swore that it tells you all you need to know. So Mike you can read this and learn then put a sign out in front of your home Bait For Sale and I have given you a new occupation in your retirement years. (JOKE) The following is what the guys at Purina have to say about earthworms on their earthworm chow label, most of it works for me. Purina Earthworm Chow label INGREDIENTS C Ground corn, ground soybean hulls. dehydrated alfalfa meal, cane molasses dehulled soybean meal, calcium carbonate, porcine meat meal, dical-cium phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, ground oats, ground wheat fish meal! Dried beet pulp. animal fat preserved with BHA, wheatgerm, corn gluten meal, salt, soybean oil, folic acid, choline chloride, DL-alpha tocopheryl acetate, riboflavin, pyridoxine hydrochloride, nicotinic acid, menadione dimethylpyrimidinol bisulphate, calcium pantothenate, cynocobala-min, vitamin A acetate manganous oxide, zinc oxide, ferrous carbonate, copper sulfate, zinc sulfate, calcium iodate, cobalt carbonate DIRECTIONS Feed earthworms daily or adjust feeding schedule to management pro-gram. When surface feeding sprinkle the bed lightly with water and scatter the feed lightly over the bed surface. Adjust the amount of feed to what the worms will consume daily. When red worms are raised in bedding which con-tains composted organics (food items, manure etc.) decrease the feeding rate. Be sure the food is consumed before additional feeding. The amount of feed depends on the number of worms in the bed. Overfeeding may lead to a sour moldy bedding which is undesirable. For best results stir or turn the bedding at least twice a week. Keep the bedding loose and well aer-ated. Either mix 5% agricultural limestone in the feed or sprinkle the bedding lightly with agricultural limestone (use Calcium Carbonate do not use prepared or dehydrated lime or calcium Oxide) each time the bedding is turned. Do not sprinkle either the food or the agricultural limestone directly on the worms. CAUTION: Store in dry well ventilated area free from rodents and insects.

The part I do not do is turn the bedding twice a week because it takes two days for the grindal worms to re surface so I turn half of each 5 foot long bed a week and the worms do fine. In fact I can now feed all of my fish live foods daily, enough to keep them plump like me. Plump worms make plump egg laying fish. I add the calcium carbonate once every two weeks when I turn the bedding. For bedding I use Magic Worm Bedding available at www.magicproducts.com in the 24 lb box. UPS delivers it about 3 days after you place your order. Delivered to my door the box costs $25.00. Consider that gas is $4.00 a gallon and Wal-Mart Gets $3.00 for a small box, 25 Lbs. delivered to your door is a good deal. That is about the price of a half pound of black worms delivered. The Magic Worm Bedding also works on white worms. If I get cheap, I mix one cup of the Calcium Carbonate to 5 gallons of Canadian Sphagnum and water enough so it is wet to touch and let it sit a few days before use so it soaks up the water. Keep the bedding very moist so that the grindals will come to the sur-face. I keep 1 foot long pieces of solid color acrylic on top of the bedding to keep the light off and also for and easy means to collect the grindal worms. I have 3 -5 foot long boxes that have about 3-4 " of bedding in them and the worms do well at fish room temperature 76 degrees F.

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Skiffia Multipunctata By

Bill Flowers

The Skiffia Multipunctata is a nice little goodeid that hails from Mexico the fish are relatively easy to take care of and spawn. The fish is a livebearer that, when well fed will not eat its young. It is sometimes called the Speckled Sawtooth Goodeid because of the black splotches that the males get. I originally received some young from Joe F. and proceeded to grow them out. After a few months I noticed one of the fish starting to get some dark spots on its side, indicating that this fish could be a male. Sexing the fish is a little different than most other livebearers. The male does not develop a gonopodium like other livebearer males. Instead the front of the anal fin is separated from the rest of the anal fin. The females still get the gravid spot similar to other livebearers and the spot is usually more prominent just before birth. The fish tend to swim in the middle of the tank and so can be seen most of the time and will read-ily accept any slow sinking foods. As I said earlier these fish is easy to keep and breed. They like hard, alkaline water and can withstand cooler temperatures, most of the time the fish were kept in an unheated aquarium and at room temperature. I kept mine in a 10 gallon unheated tank with some Najas grass and a small corner filter for filtration. The fish seem to take to small pelleted food and flake food. Once a week they would get either frozen blood worms, frozen Mysis Shrimp, or live Black worms. Breeding the Sawtooth is easy. I kept mine in a 10 gallon tank with Najas and did my weekly 10% water changes... The fish are not known for eating their fry and so I waited to see if any fry showed up. Sure enough about a month after I had gotten the fish, I saw 3 fry in the tank. Not as many as I expected but a start. The fry are large enough at birth to start eating fine flakes and BBS along with other finely ground foods. I fed the fish ground up flakes and crumbled up HBH Soft and Moist pellets. About a month to month and half later I found 9 more fry in the tank, this was more of the quantity that I felt I should be getting from a young couple. The Sawtooth Goodeid is an undemanding little Goodeid that would work well as your first Goodeid. I would recommend it to anyone that wants to try Goodeids to give this one a try. Next time you get a chance pick some up and try them. You will not be disappointed and who knows, you might end up with some BAP points.

Species 44 by Charley Grimes

Species 44 is one of the prettiest of all the all the fish out of Lake Victoria. The male is a stun-ning rascal with lots of color & pattern---reds, blues, golds & blacks. He also is an aggressive rascal---not a killer, but a showoff, pushy, little stinker. Females are sort of gray/green with no markings. A nice Species 44 male is an outstanding fish in any display tank. One of my favorites, I jumped at the opportunity to get trio and was actually pretty excited to get a spawning. There was nothing special about the spawning. Basically, one morning I noticed the female holding eggs and three weeks later I stripped 27 fry from the brooding female. I also stripped a Yellow Lab female and have raised the fry of both in the same 15 gallon tank. The Species 44 fry are growing a little faster but haven’t evidenced any aggression toward the smaller Yellow Labs. The one inch Species 44 are already showing some pattern and color and , of course, scrap-ping among themselves. I guess they are already training to be stinkers when they grow to be adults. I guess you have to take the good with the bad----and the Species 44 are worth the trou-ble.

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BAP Report Apistogramma agassizi

Joe Fleckenstein

Apistogramma agassizi is a dwarf cichlid from South America. In my opinion, with its bright blue coloration and red trim this is one of the best looking of the genus Apistogramma. I picked up a trio of these fish from an aquarium store in New Jersey on one of my trips out east to visit family. This particular trio was the triple red strain which has red markings along all of the unpaired fins. The male of this trio was a particularly striking fish. He was easily distinguished from the females as he had the bright blue and red colors while the females were a much duller gray color with a hint of yellow. Yellow coloration is a good sign that an apisto is a female. So it was not hard for the store employee to pick out a male and two females for me. The fish I acquired were already adults, so when set up in the correct environment it was not long before they spawned. These are not large fish with the adult male approaching three inches and adult females around two inches. I kept these fish under the same conditions in which I keep almost all of the Apistogramma species with which I work. They were given a twenty gallon high aquarium filled with soft water a pH of around 6.5 and a TDS reading close to 80ppm. The temperature was kept close to 800 F. The fish were fed mainly live foods such as white worms, black worms, and newly hatched baby brine shrimp. This was supplemented with pellet, flake and frozen foods. Under these conditions it was less than two weeks before I noticed a bright yellow female herding around a group of fry. The fry were separated from the parents by siphoning them out of the tank and placing them in another aquarium filled with water from the parent’s tank. The young were raised on baby brine shrimp, micro worms, crushed flake/freeze dried foods and Grindal worms. They grew quickly and were soon an inch long themselves. For anyone interested in this wonderful genus of dwarf cichlids, I would highly recommend Apistogramma agassizi. It is a very cooperative representative of the apistos and would be a great way for someone to ‘cut their teeth’ with this group. On top of all of this there is a great bonus, Apistogramma agassizi is a great looking fish.

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Spawning Otopharynx lithobates “Zimbabwe Rock” Yellow Blaze

By Mike Matthews

When I first set up my 125, I picked up a group of 10 of these guys from Armke in Texas. They have a reputation of being very mild tempered and I thought their bright color, size and temperament would be a great addition. Between a powerhead mishap where I lost a few sleeping fish, the mistake of also purchasing some really as-sertive Victorians, and general attrition has left me with 4 adults, 3 large males around 7 inches and one female of about 3.5 inches. I’ve been keeping these guys in the same

125 since I got them, house with a collection of Malawi cichlids, African catfish, a large pleco, and at various times convicts and a group of Buenos Aires tetras. What is inter-esting about their spawning is that the female has held 6-8 times prior to this and al-ways swallowed the eggs by day 2. This time I stripped her of the eggs and raised them in a critter keeper with methyline blue. I only had 5 fry reach 30 days with this method and since then have had another successful spawning. This one was also stripped, but she held the eggs for 6 days before I took them. I think their may be a correlation with this fish between dominance and successful spawning. Just prior to the first of these two spawns, I lost the dominant male Taiwan Reef that was in the tank with then. Both spawns seemed to occur while the fish were reestablishing the pecking order within the tank. With the second spawn, I used Jungle Fish Egg Guard at the rate of a few drops per day and managed to raise about 20 of the fry, which was roughly 1/3 of the total clutch of eggs. Fry are good sized once they are off their egg sacks and take pretty much anything small from microworms to crushed flake or powdered krill. I started them on grindal worms after a few days.

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Neolamprologus brichardi Submitted by Gary Grissom

Don’t blink or you’ll miss it! A few months ago I purchased a bag of brichardi at a monthly club auction. I took them home and tossed them in a nearly fishless tank. I fed them regularly and changed water every two to three weeks. No special attention or effort was given. About eight weeks later I figured I had made a bad investment. Of the seven fish I started with, only three were left and one didn’t look so good. A few days later I was down to two. As I was removing the corpse I saw what had been going on. In the bottom left hand half of the tank were a few hundred fry. A handful were obviously from earlier spawns. I hadn’t expected any spawning for a few more months so I had pretty much ignored the tank. I had “blinked” and missed it. I knew it was time to learn about this species that I was always intrigued by, but I still haven’t done so. The only research I have done was to verify that they will thrive on just about any food you toss in, so they get a mixture of frozen, flake and live foods - mainly grindal worms. Oh-yeah don’t change massive amounts of water – no more than 20% at a time. – I nearly lost them all one day. Thank goodness I was watching as I filled the tank after a 50% change. When they started looking very stressed, I put several more power filters and air stones on/in the tank. They sprang back to their active state shortly thereaf-ter. I have been feeding the fry microworms and crushed flake. There are new spawns every 4 weeks or so. Brichardi are a great fish for a beginning breeder with limited tank space. There is no need to remove the fry as they are communal breeders. The older fry actually help protect their younger siblings. From my experience I think the only critical thing is a species tank – they don’t seem to “play well with others”. Have you already “mastered” guppies, platties and swordtail spawnings? Even if you haven’t, then give brichardi a try. I think you’ll enjoy the experience.

Young Neolamprologus brichardi Photo by Beta Mahatvaraj

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I hit upon this ‘slick’ method of raising two very different species, from eggs, in a ten gallon tank. About a year ago, I re-acquired one of the prettiest, and smallest of the Rain-bowfises, the Pseudomugil cyanodor-salis, as a mop of eggs from Jim Gra-ham. Pseudomugil cyanodorsalis, an inch long fish as an adult, is a stunning fish----bright blue on the top half with incredible yellow saber-shaped bril-liant yellow dorsal and anal fins in the adult males. Pseudomugil cyanodorsalis is a newly discovered (1981) brackish/saltwater fish from the northern Australia--- ----specifically, near Darwin in the North-west Territory. Those familiar with distribution expect this fish will also be found in the southern costal area of nearby New Guinea. Like most rainbows, these fish readily spawn in floating mops. And like most rainbows, the eggs are sensitive to being handled. Most hobbyists & com-mercial breeders of rainbows prefer to move mops over picking eggs. I find that even better than moving the mop to a small hatching tank, I am better off moving the adults to another tank.

Pantanodon stuhlmanni (Eastcoast Lampeye) & Pseudomugil cyanodorsalis, Blueback blue-eye

or Two in a ten by CHARLEY GRIMES

The fry are dinky and I started mine on powdered egg yolk and then graduated to newly hatched baby shrimp as they got about a week old. Other hobbyists recommend starting the fry off on vinegar eels or other commercially available fry food. The adults, because the stay so small, live on newly hatched brine shrimp as their diet. I keep these fish in 50% sea salt mix-ture and maintain them at 78 to 80 degrees. I find these fish appreciate/display best in strong sunlight balanced fluo-rescent light and really show best when they are in a large school, in a big tank. My adults are in a home-made tank that is five feet long, 18 inches wide and only 12 inches deep. I assume these fish inhabit the shal-lows in the wild and I feel this tank really suits their needs & preferences. For the most part, the Pseudomugil cyanodorsalis stay in the top couple on inches of the aquarium. As long as the aquarist caters to their need for brackish water, small live food (baby brine shrimp), and strong light & keeps them warm, Pseu-domugil cyanodorsalis seem easy to maintain. Continued on next page

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Raising the fry is a little demanding, but no big hassle. Another spawning trick I have been using utilizes the green sheet algae that tend to deposit itself on the tank sides & bottom of a strongly lit brack-ish aquarium. The adult Pseudomugil cyanodorsalis seem inclined to spawn in the algae as much as a floating mop. I seem to ex-perience a much better hatch from an algae-ridden tank after moving the adults than from moving the mop to a ‘clean’ tank.

PART TWO

Pantanodon stuhlmanni, a larger, (still under two inches, total length), and much less colorful brackish killifish---basically colored grey & silver, is maintained almost exactly the same as Pseudomugil cyanodorsalis. The main difference, culture-wise, is that Pantanodon stuhlmanni will eat frozen blood worms and frozen adult brine shrimp in addition to baby brine shrimp. Pantanodon stuhlmanni come from the coastal area of east Africa, specifi-cally, Tanzania. With a little, admit-tedly, haphazard research and per-sonal experience, I suspect this fish will do well in anything from straight sea water, various concentrations of brackish water, and in heavy mineral content fresh water.

I got my adult fish through a very convoluted route from Bill Bishopp,---- way up in Saskatchewan. And it was well worth all the hassle a couple of people went thru—at least for me. I have ‘sorta’ successfully mop spawned Pantanodon stuhlmanni, however, I have to work at it to get even limited fry production. I still need to figure out the ‘trick’ as-sociated with producing lots of Pan-tanodon stuhlmanni. However, ------- I may have acci-dently stumbled on one thing that sorta works. I had a mop of Pantano-don stuhlmanni eggs ready to hatch that, since Annie & I were going on vacation, I tossed the mop into an al-gae loaded tank that I had just pulled adult Pseudomugil cyanodorsalis from. When Annie & I got home after a week, there were a fair number of tiny fry swimming in the algae tank----so, were they Pseudomugil cyanodorsalis or Pantanodon stuhlmanni? At about six week of age, I observed a couple dozen fry swimming near the surface & a similar number swimming in the lower half of the tank---and two different species. Son-of –a-gun, ------ success ----- and my tank is doing double duty.

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Re-visiting Nanachromis nudiceps Or

I finally figured it out! About 30 years ago----ain’t it scary being able to re-member back farther than many of our members are old?---I first enjoyed and successfully had the experi-ence of having successful spawnings of N. nudiceps. What little I know about N. nudiceps is that they are a dwarf cichlid from somewhere in western Africa. Probably a rain forest denizen that appreciates soft acid water and live foods. As with almost all dwarf cichlids, I like them! Remembering what I had for lunch today is pretty much a mystery but stuff that happened 25 years ago pops up with perfect clarity. Therefore, I feel that my memory regarding the details regarding the spawning of N. nudiceps is pretty accurate. I had placed a pair in a landscaped 15 gallon tank, filled with rainwater, complete with rockwork caves and flower pots lying on their sides. The little dum-mies were forever digging out under the rocks and I became fearful that the cave rockwork would collapse on and kill one or both of the finny dimwits. Being smarter than a couple of 2 inch fish, as well as not wanting to give up the planted tank, I removed all the rocks and the sidewise laying flowerpots. Of course, now the tank had no cavework so I put in a couple of largish (6 inch X6 inch) flat piece of tile over the gravel and inverted a couple of flower pots, each with a hole in the side, to serve as breeding caves. That ought to keep the excavators under control and force the pair to spawn where I wanted them to spawn. Shortly after I put the pair in the new setup, the little dummies started digging tunnels under the pieces of tile and I finally gave up on controlling the behavior, and figured ‘it was their funeral’. Of course, about a month later the female was escort-ing a pretty big herd if fry around the tank and would herd the group into the tunnel at night or when threat-ened. The male was also ‘on guard’ with the female being careful; to keep between the fry and the ‘Poppa’. Success, in spite of me.

Even with all the gyrations they put me through, I did pay enough attention to be able to reliably sex males and females when they were half grown. I considered myself fairly knowledgeable about N. Nudiceps—after all, I am ‘pretty hot stuff”. Like all fish, the fascination with the N. nudicips waned and I got rid of the young ones and sort of shuf-fled the pair to a low, coolish tank and since I no longer cared if they spawned again, the tank I dumped them into was poorly lit, almost bare, hard water tank. Of course, since I no longer cared about the fish, al-ready having my breeding experience, they naturally spawned like clockwork----Conditions: in hard water with a temperature in the low 60’s, an almost bare tank, and mostly flake food ( STUPID FISH ). NOW, FAST FORWARD 20 YEARS In the 20+ years since I had these fish, they underwent a name change—no big surprise there! They are now Nanachromis parallelus (or some such moniker that I am not going to bother learning to spell). How I came to acquire a couple of pairs of adults 3 or 4 months ago is a rather complicated set of circum-stances that we will skip over. Suffice it to note that the four fish were full grown and in prime condition. As usual when I get new fish, I didn’t have two empty tanks set up and ready for the fish so I dumped all four into a pretty heavily planted 15 gallon tank with a school of adult Glow-line Rasboras. The only thing special was that it was a soft water tank. Naturally, this all happened when I had seven million things going on in my life so the fish in tank were lucky to get fairly regular water changes and a decent feeding schedule. Actually, the feeding regimen was better than decent since I was harvesting lots of daph-nia and mosquito larvae.

Continued on the next page

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In short order, one male became dominate, and was very handsome; both females began to look pretty ro-bust, and the other male was being pushed around a little but got plenty to eat and wasn’t getting beat up so I wasn’t too concerned. A couple of times I thought I saw females looking ready to spawn and I even thought I saw fry on one occasion but the tank was so thickly planted, I wasn’t sure. Basically, as there was no emergency, I just sort of ‘left well enough alone’. I finally had a mini emergency that caused a couple of changes. My old (at least 25 years) 100 gallon tank started leaking. It would slowly leak until about 25 gallons leaked out and then stopped. I had long ago decided I was too old to screw around with old tanks so I planned to get rid of the stinker. Fortunately I mentioned the tank to Joe Fleckenstine & Dennis Bradshaw. Joe, a college boy, quickly said ‘I don’t want any more of your junk’. Dennis, ever the considerate and sympathetic sort came to my rescue saying that he wanted a big growout tank and that he would take it. I figured I would find time to get the fish out, drain it and clean the tank a little and would be ready when Dennis, and some other young bucks came up to get the tank out of my fishroom. I hadn’t figured that Dennis would call the next eve-ning and say that he was on his way to pick up the leaker tank. I was not close to ready—I had just gotten home from work and the tank still had fish in it. I tried to talk the ‘pea-head’ out of it but he wasn’t to be de-nied. When Dennis got to my place, I asked him why it was so important that he pick up the tank this evening. He replied that he had just found out his wife & daughter were hosting a cosmetics party. I immediately under-stood----it wasn’t the tank, he just needed to be away from his house, no matter what the reason, for a few hours. My heart went out to him and I no longer minded get-ting the tank broken down and helping him load the stupid thing.

(It was pretty heavy and I took the opportunity to com-plain a lot.) I was thrilled to be shut of the tank. The six foot stand that had held the 100 gallon tank was the perfect spot for two 50 gallon tanks (36 x i8 x18) that I just happened to have on hand. By the weekend, I had both of the 50’s in place, complete with gravel, plants, and tap water, which is pretty hard, but all I had available. Two pairs of N. nudiceps, in tip-top condition, two big planted tanks; success was within sight! As I started to break down the 15 gallon tank to get the twp pairs of N. nudiceps out along with the Rasboras that had been utilized as dither fish, I was greeted by a herd of N. nudiceps fry scurrying around on the gravel. At this point, I knew I had to hurry to get the adult fish out of the tank or the disturbed fish would settle down and likely chow down on the little fry. In quick order I got three N. nudiceps & the Rasboras out of the tank. I then spent another couple of minutes not finding the fourth N. nudicep! I assume it kicked the bucket? Since I ended up with 1 female & two males, I popped ‘em all in in one of the 50 gallon tanks and did a little 1st aid on the 15 gallon that I hoped still had the fry. I couldn’t see any fry now but I knew they were tiny and hoped they were hiding in the gravel. After about a week, I would see an occasional fry which gave me renewed hope. After about three weeks, I could observe quite a few and now I would guess I have 35 or 40 half inchers bouncing around in there. The 50 gallon tank seemed sort of uneventful. The big male N. nudicep staked claim to all three caves. He would tolerate the female in one cave for a while, evict her, let her have another cave, evict her, etc. The smaller male was relegated to hanging around in a bunch of plants with no apparent aggression from the larger male as long as he didn’t try to claim a territory.

Continued on the next page

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Premium Aquatics Seachem, INC TAAM,INC

Ocean Nutrition Cole Industries Fritz Industries Ginger Products Hartz Mountain

Two Little Fishies TFH Publications Rolf C. Hagen

Aquatic Ecosystems Rogalla’s Plants Salt Creek, Inc The Fish Factory

ZeroEdge Aquariums Aquatic Foods Aquariums

ATI The Reef Specks Sailfin FAMA

Aquadine Aquarian Hikari

Aquaria, Inc Marc Weiss Novalek, Inc

Penn Plax, Inc. Kent Marine E.G. Danner

St. John Labs Weiss Organics

The Goodeidae Foundation

This note is to thank the manufacturers and businesses that support our club year after year by

generously donating their products that we use as raffle and door prizes. Please buy their products when you are shopping for your hobby. After all, if we don’t support them, they can’t support us.

Fritz Industries, Inc. Marine Enterprise International

Cichlid News Magazine The Fish Bowl Pet Shop

Omega Sea Limited Oscar Enterprises, Inc

Perfecto Manufacturing, Inc Pentair Aquatics

Planttabbs Products San Franscisco Bay Brand Aquarium Pharmaceuticals

Aquarium Systems Boyd Enterprises Inc

HBH Enterprises Jungle Laboratories

Greentree Pet Center Tetra/Second Nature Tropical Science Labs Marine Technology

Aquarium Fish Magazine Lees Aq and Pet Products

Ocean Star International, Inc Python Products, Inc

Zoo Med Laboratories, Inc Miraclebeam Products, Inc

CCAC Supporters

After about a month, the female’s abdominal area started to swell noticeably and the belly region turned pinkish. At first I thought she would spawn soon even though the big male showed no interest. The belly region on the female was swell-ing to where she looked as if she has swallowed a marble. The female had me concerned as she was so swollen that I was concerned that she might be eggbound as this condition persisted for a long time. Her ovipositor was distended throughout the swollen abdomen situation but as the male was ignoring her, I thought I had screwed something up—maybe? A few days later, the bigger male killed the smaller male and still ignored the female as she stayed in one of the caves. Then, the big male was dead—torn to shreds---obviously, the female did him in! A couple of days later she was escorting fry around in the tank. At this point, I had to assume that she was responsible for the deaths of the other three P. nudiceps---the nasty little stinker. Interestingly, even though I had a spawn in both a soft water setup and a hard water setup with about 40 healthy fry in each spawn. However, over the first six months, only 8 fry survived in the hard water tank and most of the fry survived in the soft water tank. From my experience with dwarf cichlids, this is no big surprise.

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Announcing Fish Wars— The Hybrid Menace, the 2009 American Cichlid Asso-ciation Conven-

tion. We invite you to come and experience the infamous

yearly gathering of cichlidiots, cichlidophiles, and fans of all things cichlid. Internationally known speakers will provide top notch lectures throughout the convention on relevant and hot topics in cichlid husbandry and habitat. Along with the best and biggest cichlid show of the year, you’ll enjoy a manufacturer’s showcase, vendors’ showroom, a large dry goods auction, an even larger cichlid auction, nightly hospi-tal­ity suite, and all of the great attractions and landmarks Cincinnati has to offer.

This year, Greater Cincinnati Aquarium Society is hosting the festivities. The convention will be held at the Sheraton Hotel with a special convention room rate of $105.00. Rec-reation options at the Sheraton Hotel include an indoor wa-ter resort. The 50,000 square foot indoor CoCo Key water resort is complete with thrilling slides, exciting arcade games, Pizza Hut, and A&W Root Beer Restaurant. A dis-count is available for hotel guests registered for the con-vention. Wireless Internet access is avail­able throughout the hotel (complimentary wire­less Internet access is avail­able in the public areas on the lobby level). Additional rooms are available next door at the Fairfield Inn & Suites for $92.00 per night.

We have three exciting family friendly tours planned for this year ­a tour of the Newport Aquarium and Krohn Conservatory, as well as a tour of the world renowned Cincinnati Zoo and Jun-gle Jim’s International Market. Other area attractions include Cincinnati Downtown, Museum Center at Union Terminal with an Omnimax Theater, The Beach Water Park, Kings Island Amusement Park, The Golf Center at Kings Island, Tri County Mall, and The Bass Pro Shops in Cincinnati Mills Mall. The Cincinnati Zoo We will be boarding a motor coach for a family trip to the Cincin-nati Zoo. Enjoy the exhibits in large or small groups at one of the most highly honored zoos in the country. Meet the only Suma-tran Rhinos outside of Southeast Asia. View Manatee Springs, Giraffe Ridge, white Bengal tigers, polar bears, and much, much more, all in their innova­tive, natural settings. Jungle Jim’s International Market: Private tour of the most unique “grocery store” you’ll ever see. 950+ hot sauces, 63 foot wall of beer, 1400 varieties of cheese, live rainbow trout, sushi bar, and, of course, a singing Elvis bear. Newport Aquarium & Krohn Conservatory Our tour bus will cross the Ohio River for a trip to the Newport Aquarium. View a pair of rare shark rays, as well as over 445,000 gallons of reef fish and sharks. Wander the rooms of fresh water fish from all corners of the globe.

An insider’s recommendation of hidden land-

marks in Cincinnati:

The Museum Center at Union Terminal: A renovated railroad terminal building, the Museum center is an edu-cational and cultural center with an ever rotating venue of attractions and displays.

National Underground Railroad Freedom Cen­ter: Tells the story or the Underground Railroad through ma-jor exhibits and programs that have attracted hundreds of thousands of Cincinnati Reds Baseball: Check the Red’s website (or your favorite team’s) for game schedules.

Cincinnati Chili: Called an acquired taste by some, it’s a food experience unique to Cincinnati.

Hotel Information

The ACA 2009 Convention – Fish Wars Cincinnati – will be held at the Sheraton Cincinnati North Hotel. All convention ac-tivities, including Registration, lectures, workshops, fish show, local trip departures/arrivals, Awards Banquet, and the Auction will take place at the Sheraton. You will also be able to enjoy the CoCo Key Indoor Water Park. (A discount is available for hotel guests registered for the convention.) The hotel is located a few miles north of downtown Cincinnati within the 275 loop and offers easy access to Interstate 75.

Sheraton Hotel $105.00 per night 11320 Chester Rd Cincinnati, OH 45246 Phone: (513) 771­2080

visitors since its opening in August 2004.

For Further details such as a full itinerary, hotels and map and directions please visit: http://www.2009aca.com/

Ad Konings Chuck Rambo

Evan Bowers

Hans Koops van’t Jagt

Jeff Cardwell Michi Tobler

Paul Loiselle Spencer Jack

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Corydoras aneus (Albino)

By

Bill Flowers

I have always been fascinated by the different spe-cies of Cories and even though I have never been accused of having “Cat Scratch Fever.” Cories always seem to have an easy going attitude in the tank. As long as there are at least 6 of them in a tank, they will happily go about clowning around in the aquarium. After keeping several different species over the years, I decide to expand my breeding to some of the more common species first. I have always liked starting with the more common species of fish first. They are usually easier and will tolerate more mistakes and still breed for the aquarist. I picked these up at one of CCAC’s annual auctions for a couple of dollars. There were six young fish in the bag and the best I could tell was two females and four males. This is considered a good mix for breeding most of the Cories. To sex cories I always like to look down from the top. The females, even when young, will have a more rounded appearance. The fish were taken home and acclimated to my well water in a ten gallon aquarium. This is the tank that I grew them up in and subsequently tried to breed them in. After a few months I was down to a single female and two males. The others were given away to some kids in the neighborhood. At this time I started to feed the fish frozen Blood Worms, frozen Brine Shrimp, HBH Soft and Moist Pel-lets, and some grindal worms. I was doing weekly water changes with rain and well water mixed hoping the water changes would induce spawning. Well it didn’t. I tried raising the water temperature lowering the water tempera-ture to no avail After about two months of trying different techniques to get them to spawn, I decided that the fish were to “stupid” to know that they are suppose to be breeding. I had other fish that were spawning in commu-nity tanks and made the decision to put the cories aside since they were refusing to cooperate. I tossed them into a twenty long with a few other fish. The water parameters in the twenty were approximately 7.5 Ph and hard water. The temperature was around 76 degrees. After about a two weeks I noticed a large clump of eggs in the corner of the twenty gallon. Apparently they decided that if they wanted any quality food, they need to start producing. I started counting the eggs and stopped counting after 141 eggs. Surely I could get at least 75 fry out of these eggs. I removed the eggs by scraping them off the tank side with a single edged razor blade.

The eggs were deposited into a half ten tank that I had added some of the twenty gallon tank water into. The tank also had a corner filter running to provide water filtration and circulation. The eggs took between 3 and 4 days to hatch and the fry were free swimming a couple days later. Raising the fry was easy being bottom feeders and in a bare bottom tank, any food that found its way to the bottom was soon eaten. Anything I could get on the bot-tom, they would eventually find. I fed them newly hatched Brine Shrimp, Microworms, Golden Pearls, fro-zen BBS, and HBH Soft and Moist Pellets. They seem to grow quickly and quickly out grew their tank. I moved them to a 40L to give them more room to grow out. If you ever decide to start breeding cories, I would highly recommend you start with the Albino Cory. They are tolerant of a wide range of water conditions, readily available, and cute. Just so you know once these fish fig-ured out what to do, they wouldn’t stop. About every 14 to 20 days I could count on another 50 or so eggs showing up. I finally just let the eggs hatch in the community tank and let the other fish eat the fry.

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American Cichlid Association Convention

http://www.2009aca.com/ July 30 - August 2

Cincinnati, OH

SWAMS Workshop and Auction October 9-11

www.swams.org

GCCA - Chicago 5/24/2009 – Auction

http://www.gcca.net/index.htm

GWASOC -Chicago Fall All Species Auction - October 25, 2009

http://www.gwasoc.org/

Michigan Killifish Association 'All Killifish' Show and Auction

September 20 & 21, 2008 http://www.aka.org/mka/annual_show.htm

CCAC 2007 Board of Directors

Standing Committees: Auction / Annual Events: Bill Flowers ccacauction@gmail.com

Dennis Bradshaw (ALA Coordinator) dwbradshaw1@comcast.net

Breeder Award Program: Dustin Stonebraker dcfonline@sbcglobal.net

Editor / Publications: Russ Myers (812) 696-2724 hrussmyers@cebridge.net

Technical Editor Bob Hargis bhargis@dishmail.net

President: Mike Matthews mikedmatthews@comcast.net (317) 513-4879

Vice President: Jen Dillon

Secretary: Julie Matthews Jkm.noplacelikehome@gmail.com (317) 513-4985

Treasurer: Hedy Padgett Ranchu2@juno.com

Members at Large:

Three positions open

Advertising Manager Currently Open

Exchange Editor: Hedy Padgett Ranchu2@juno.com

Social: Currently open HAP: Jen Dillon (317) 446-5889 Jen.ford@gmail.com

Library: Currently open

Membership: Hedy Ranchu2@juno.com

Refreshments: Jana Strathmann

Ways and Means: Hedy Padgett Ranchu2@juno.com

Jen Dillon Jen.ford@gmail.com

Webmasters: Dustin Stonebraker dcfonline@sbcglobal.net

Plan a Road Trip… Champaign Area Fish Exchange SUMMER Auction:

July 18, 2009 http://www.champaignfish.com/auctions/index.html

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24

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