Tonight Was the May meeting

TwoTankAmin · May 23, 2026

At tonight's club auction I sold 45 var Blue Dream Neocaridina davidi shrimp, 24 assassin snails (Anentome helena), two bags of Amazon frogbit (Limnobium laevigatum) and a piece of Malaysian driftwood. I bough six more black schultzi corys and a bag of Bacopa caroliniana I needed some stem plants. I let another corys species go even though I could have kept bidding. I donated half of my sale proceeds to the club, paid $26 for the corys and $10 for what I think is more than 10 stems. I will see in the morning. I put them into a bucket of water. After all that I got paid #2.50.

The best part is the cory's are bred by he clubs Master Breeder. I have some of his Purple Emperor tetra (Inpaichthys kerri), Hoplisoma oiapoquense and Osteogaster aenea. He is now an officer in my Club- DAAS. I was at that event in the vendor room and I attended the "Masters of the Spawn” evening.

Cole, Bill

Thanks to the Danbury Area Aquarium Society for sponsoring club member Bill Cole at the 2019 convention Bill Cole was awarded the first Master Breeder Level Three in the history of the NEC. He has sold over 2000 lots of fish that he has bred in his fishroom and sold at NEC Convention auctions and club auction of the past many years. Bill has been invited to be a panelist at the “Masters of the Spawn” Friday night kickoff presentation at the 2019 “Dancing with the Fishroom Stars” convention.

Despite being 89 years old, Rosario LaCorte was on that panel. When I am a vendor at an event I normally get my entrance fee for the room because I am a sponsor at the level which got me vendor admission and a booth and tables, weekend registration for the event and hotel meal tickets for breakfasts and dinners. Because I hate the food at the events, I normally bring my own or I get take out or will go out for dinner with some other folks at the event.

Rosarrio came with his wife. THE NEC covers his room, travel costs and meals and may pay him a fee as well. His wife can stay in the room and they do not live all that far from the event. What they do not do is give her meals. I was friendly with the person with the NEC who ran the event. She knew I did not use my meal tickets, explained the situation and asked if I would be willing to give Mrs. LaCorte my meal tickets. Of course I said yes.

(edited for typos and then to add the following)
I am willing to skip quarantine on Bill's fish when I get them. This has never cone back o bite me.

GaryE · May 23, 2026

Rosario LaCorte passed at 95 in 2024, and was one of the greats in the hobby. I had the honour of meeting him a couple of times, and he was something. A very bright man who figured out a lot of aquarium related puzzles, and was very generous with his learning. I got to be a fly on the wall for some of his conversations, and really admired his way of keeping fish.

TwoTankAmin · May 24, 2026

Here is an interesting factoid. The way that breeder presentation worked was that event attendees were permitted to submit written questions for the panel. These were reviewed before deciding what would be asked. One quaestion asked of all the panelists was what was their favorite food for condition fish to spawn. The two most common answers were bloor worms or black worms, except for Rosario, His naswer was Tubifex. worms which he used to collect from culverts, ditches and other similar places they tend to inhabit. This makes them "unclean."

Rosario told of how he used to clollect them and then had to clean them up before feeding. Today Tubifex are grown in clean environments to be fed to fish and they should come free of any potential nasties. I fed them for a while, The one thing I learned was that while most of my fish would eat them, my Altum Angels refused to do so.

GaryE · May 24, 2026

My May meeting is coming up. I leave in about 20 minutes.

I have a bunch of fish in lots to sweeten the pot and draw members in. We get a lot of plants in the auction, but not many people breed fish. It's a new club and the idea has been sinking in. It is possible to breed fish and not just buy them...