The April Club Meeting

[TwoTankAmin]

Tonight's topic was axolotls. They kind of creep me out, but I had to deliver bunch of Poret sheets and some uplift tubes to a member. I also wanted to put stuff into and possibly buy stuff at the auction. Finally, at last month's meetings I sold my first Neocaridina davidi var. red cherry One buyer said when he got home all but one were dead. I have no idea why but I offered him either replacements or a refuds and I would allow the club to keep its cut. He said bring replacements to the meeting tonight. So, I had to catch them in the jingle 5.5 gal. tank 5 feet up a wall. Because I felt guilty, I was bringing more shrimp than he had won.

To sell, I brought two bags each with 12 assassin snails + and extra; 2 bags of 12 of the Neo. davidi blue dream with a couple of very tiny offspring as well: two good sized bags of Amazon Frogbit (Limnobium laevigatum): and pretty big Anubias. I had to cut the top off of a huge one in a 29 gal that was hitting the glass top. I sold the top piece.

I also learned something I did not know. The are commercial breeders in Israel producing decent numbers of an assortment of species. It turns out there is a store about 20 -25 minutes from me which has been importing them. The club officer who does the auctions knows the owned and there were several bags of fish from the store in the auction. Our guy said the quality of the imports was really high. He said if the owner ordered 20 neons they would send 24 or 25 figuring some would die in transit. However, out club officer said that he was told there were never any DOAS.

Assuming the neons llok as good as they were said to be, I plan to hit that store and see if I can get more. About to 20 years ago I had a school of about 65 cadrinals in my inwall 75. It was amazing to watch them. I woulad like ti have at least 15 total maybe more.

There were six neons in the auction and I have never kept neons. I have done cardinals and rummy nose int the past and currently have purple emperors. I bought them sight unseen and when I got home they went into a dark tank. I will get to see them tomorrow.

Tonight we had two young ladies (about 10 years old) come with their member dads. They both aad a guppy tank. Also, the guy for whom I had brought the reolacement shtimp said he did not want them any more. So, I asked him to let me pay him for what spent when he won them and he refused that as well. I should mention that for the club auction sales I always put some small live plant into bags of shrimp so they will have sonething they hold onto in transit. This week it was a small anubias. They only had 4 or 5 leaves.

One of the two young girls, with her dad's blessing, bid on and won one of the bags of blue shrimp. At the end of the meeting I asked her dad is she would like the bag of red cherries. He said yes and asked how much did I want for them, I said nothing. I did not want to have to deal with bringing them home and getting them back into their tank which is lkoaded with shrimp. Besides, I hope that it makes more inclined to stay with the hobby as she gets older. That is the second time I gave a youngster at a meeting some free shrimp. I will only do this if they have bid and won something at the auction. Kids need to appreaciate the cost of things. I will sell to older kids for cash as they are old enough to learn about the value money and on what they will spend their allowance.

In addition to the neons I bought 1 lb of frozen Hikari Brine Shrimp for $8.

It turned out that the woman and her husband who came with her run an axolotl rescue operation. I was actually facinated by her talk but I still do not want to keep axolotls. They are connected to a University and hav e recently got a governement grant as well and the are starting to get decent donations. The do serious work with the animals. They do xrays, surgery, medcatins etc.

All in all it was a pretty good evening. I donated half of my auction proceeds to the club. And I came home with the 6 neons and $20.50 in cash I clocked the mileage for the round trip at 48 miles.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Wow- I got up this morning and got my first look at the neons. Their colors really pop. I cannot wait to get to the store and hopefully to get more. The club officer who is very well connected in the fish world raved about the quality of the Israeli bred fish and the practices of the store owner who has done talks at the club

Over the years I have vert rarely bout fish from retails stores. I have purchase many 100s of fish over the years but maybe 25-30 came from stores. My luck with these has mostly been poor. My first case of ich came from a retail store. I put about 20 fish into Q and a day later I was seeing the ich. I .ost all but 1 fish which were a mix of tetras and danios. Oddly enough, I had better luck with imports except for wild Altums which are a PITA to keep alive for a number of reason.

I have shopped at one store which is excellent in all respects save the prices which are about as high as you will see. But, I was willing to skip Q on their fish. They are the only store where I would consider doing this. Normally the fish in the club auction are bred by members many of whom have been doing this for a long time. The 6 neons, being from a store, would normally go into Q for at least a month. But, after the rave recommendation/review of the club officer, I was willing to take the chance on the neons.

The only problem is the 20 gal. tank into which I put them holds a lot of blue shrimp, a lone albino BN, A few Hoplisoma oiapoquense cory and 2 pairs of CPDs and a ton of plants. What it does not have is a bigger fish which might "scare" schoolers into schooling. This tank actually began life as a Q tank and became a permanent tank.