Going fishing in West Africa - a journal

[SammyTargo]

It's above in the thread, but no. If I were in the US, the process would have been very expensive and very bureaucratic, but in Canada and the EU, you are allowed to bring fish back if you simply declare them and have small numbers for personal use and not for sale or distribution.

Ah, I always thought you needed to go through many securities before being allowed to bring fish back.

 

[GaryE]

They have to be in luggage, not carry on (liquid restrictions). If you bought them, a bill is needed, as with anything else you buy. If you don't declare them, and get caught - not good. But if you are open, they are humanely packed and the numbers are small, we can do it.
They can't be on the CITES list of endangered species, and there is a listing of fish that need veterinary inspection because they carry diseases. A lot of gouramis, for example, can carry Iridoviruses. You have to do your homework.
A lot of really good fish are hard to find in Canada. So it can be worthwhile.

 

[SammyTargo]

A lot of really good fish are hard to find in Canada. So it can be worthwhile.

I know. It is impossible to find good cichlids that aren't modern-bred or basic. This is bad that across every fish store I could find in a 45 minute radius from my house I couldn't find jack dempseys that aren't electric blue. Flag acaras have been a request of mine for years and I still can't find them, and they stopped selling feeder guppies from every store 3 years ago. If you've tried or are educated in guppy breeding, creating a new strain that isn't just a "variation," that won't even go into the index is impossible using fancy guppies, you can go 16 generations and still be stuck in square 2.

 

[Back in the fold]

What ! Not spectacular ? They’re great ! Not every Killie has to be a technicolor extravaganza . I love surface fish . I’d hate to be a fruit fly in there .

 

[GaryE]

Yet another killie - Epiplatys bifasciatus.

This one really interested me. It'll be weeks before they're grown and coloured up, and that will be subdued. They were one of my targets as I find them really interesting to watch. This one will be blue and red - a smaller, thinner fish than the togolensis above. But what caught my eye there was that in water that had seawater infiltrating, these were common fish. The ones from these habitats, not quite traditionally brackish water but lightly salted, were blue and red fish. We did see some full adults, but they didn't survive.

In pure freshwater habitats, we caught a bifasciatus that was green and red, and much more beautiful. Someone could go back and really sample to see if that observation was legitimate - we didn't get enough of an overview.

My green ones are really small and not very colourful yet. I couldn't get photos, but when I can, I'll post them.

This'll never be a popular fish, but I had kept it before, from both Nigerian and Guinean sources. It's a widespread one, and an old friend in killie terms. I'd never seen the green morph before this trip.

 

[anewbie]

T

You can see the species isn't spectacular, but I think as they grow and acclimate, the male(s?) should be attractive sorts, in a low key way. Females have no colour in their fins.

I think with the red they are very nice.

 

[anewbie]

I know. It is impossible to find good cichlids that aren't modern-bred or basic.

Well simple solution move to south america, usa or europe and you can fix that problem.

 

[GaryE]

You can get lots of good Cichlids in Canada, but not in the box stores. Fish club auctions...

 

[SammyTargo]

Well simple solution move to south america, usa or europe and you can fix that problem.

Ah yes, if only it were that simple..

 

[Back in the fold]

The genus Epiplatys has quite a few more species than I thought . I like the cut of their jib .

 

[Innesfan]

The genus Epiplatys has quite a few more species than I thought . I like the cut of their jib .

Very similar to their South Asian cousins in Aplocheilus, specifically Aplocheilus lineatus...a favorite of yours.

 

[SammyTargo]

I was thinking about the forum's contests. You have found so many ranges of fish and each one has a good story behind how you got it and so forth. All of these findings are FOTM-grade for sure and will definitely annihilate the votes. Since you have so many kinds of exotic fish that you caught, you'll probably find one that is viable for the contest's theme (if there is one)!

 

[GaryE]

I have some really beautiful fish here. In that, I'm like all the other aquarists here who have built up their fish set ups slowly, with reading, research and a few good fish finding quests. My quests have taken me into Africa, and I've had the health and ability to follow up there. My mortgage is paid off, I'm retired, I am happy to drive old cars, and my general lifestyle has always been frugal. I don't gamble, do drugs, pay churches, eat out a lot, and act as a loyal consumer. I'd get no pleasure from that. I do buy music, read books and seek fish that interest me.
My wife and I love travel and are busy spending our savings on that. We won't live forever and until the wheels fall off, we're going for it. She doesn't do the fish trips, but we hit museums, archaeological sites and old cities together. Travel is an ultimate introductory education, and I am not educated enough yet. I never will be.
What I find interesting in fish involves their backstories. Beautiful or not, they feed into a fascination I've had for most of my life - evolution and species distribution. How do these fish live? What do their shapes offer as clues? Why does what they are happen? How do they survive? How do they fit with the other creatures and things in their habitats? What's their story?

What's interesting to each of us matters here. I can enjoy a fish with very little colour. But I can't enjoy a fancy Betta splendens anymore, as an example. How they act is a result of human choices in handicapping them with enormous, beautiful fins. I see the beauty, but not the active fish I did when I had wild caught Bettas. They were brown fish with a tiny bit of red, but they were wild things - tiny predatory rockets. I am a nature nerd. There's no escaping it, so I dive in head first.

I like pretty, colourful fish, for sure. But I don't see them as ornamentals, and that makes me a bad contest guy. The contests are good for the forum, and I vote in all the fish based ones, but I've only participated a couple of times. People visit my fishroom and go "meh", politely. I don't have the technicolour set ups of a good aquarium store, but weed choked tanks and shy, tiny fish. Inceasinlgy, I know their stories and can bore you out of your brains if you make the mistake of asking...

But grey fish win no contests.

 

[GaryE]

Here's how a quest develops - my number one target in this trip. The first picture is an old one, an adult Chromaphyosemion biteniatum from Ijebu Ode in Nigeria, near the world city of Lagos. I kept that species for 10 years, and a second local Nigerian variety of the same species, "Lagos Red" for 15. There were subtle differences. The Ijebu Ode had more colours, and the Lagos Red had longer fins with less blue. They bred true to their geographic form.
With some imagination, you could wonder if well after humans are extinct, if they would diverge and become independent species. If you keep them, you can see there is variation, but not really in individuals. The diversity is different populations in different places - probably different local drainages that keep them from ever meeting.
I found myself with an opportunity to go to their habitat, but not the one they are in the killifish hobby from. Benin is right beside Nigeria, and we were reasonably close to Lagos. What would the biteniatum from there look like? I was really curious.
The second photo is of a very young male caught 10 days ago in a series of drying puddles in a roadside ditch. It had been a stream running from a lake, in rainy season. We caught four different locations of the fish, none of them adult. I kept 3, but one was only a single pair and they didn't survive. So I have two populations from two drainages, and my friend has a third for future photo comparison.
They could all look the same. But the wee male in the photo already has a huge anal fin, and his dorsal isn't shabby. One of the locations had juvenile males with scarlet spots on their flanks.
What'll I see? Patience....
The differences are subtle, but if there are differences, they're a snapshot of this moment in a fascinating process of changes.

 

[SammyTargo]

The contests are good for the forum, and I vote in all the fish based ones, but I've only participated a couple of times. People visit my fishroom and go "meh", politely. I don't have the technicolour set ups of a good aquarium store, but weed choked tanks and shy, tiny fish. Inceasinlgy, I know their stories and can bore you out of your brains if you make the mistake of asking...

But grey fish win no contests.

With all due respect, these fish aren't gray.

I completely respect the opinion of not getting flashy and ornamental fish that look stupid to a point. Despite breeding bettas for 4-5 years myself, I would always be upset if I meet a new acquaintance who tells me they have fish and then tells me they have a betta bowl or 1 gallon tank. The worst is the "GloFish," as those fish are the furthest down the line of human tampering with species and stripping of a fishes' natural colouration. However, I am getting very sidetracked.

The fish you have shown here are great fish with with very vibrant colours if you asked me. They beat most generic guppy, platy, barb, etc. entries. They also have a rich story behind how you acquired them, and how you observe them behaving, and so on.

So from an outside opinion, these fish are some of the most intriguing fish I have seen, as they are similar fish to ones that I have previously kept, but with some subtle/major differences. It is very interesting to see the diversity amongst fish, and how certain fish would look if they weren't domesticated (even if they aren't the same species, I can still grab an idea from their relative).