How do I change the email address associated with my account? I tried editing my account and user profile.

Thanks.

Joel

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Earl, here is a quote from Hammer that I received a while back:

Very young females often give birth to a few abnormal young due to our overly rich diets and the young being crowded in the ovary. It's been true since the original wild stock. Most commonly you'll see "star-gazers" - babies that often have one eye slightly smaller and incline to one side while swimming. They seem healthy otherwise and will grow up and even breed. We had them checked for pathogens and even tried breeding them but found no apparent genetic nor pathological problem???

I don't know whether this is what you might be experiencing. I have had one male with this condition, but other than swimming at an angle he seems to have developed normally.

Joel

I got a call from a guy today looking for black high fin variatus platies or black plume tail variatus platies. He wanted to put an ad in the next Livebearer Trader, which I will definitely do. However, I think it is going to be quite a while before a new issue is printed, so I thought I would use the lounge to try and find this fish for him. If you know anyone who is selling these fish, please contact me and I will give you the guy's contact information. Thanks.

Joel Healy
jhealy@kc.rr.com

I got an email the other day from someone who is trying to locate the person(s) selling "koi albino hi fin swords" at the recent ALA convention in Indy. The person was interested in obtaining some for himself and some for an acquaintance. If you can help hook this guy up, please let me know. Thanks.

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I haven't been around very long, and I am not an objective disinterested observer so it is difficult for me to separate out my personal bias, but it appears to me that any hobby left over from the good ol' days is quickly being overrun by commercialization.

I fear that being a good auctioneer is more of an asset to a local club these days than being a good breeder. Not only are clubs getting a large percentage of their operating funds from auctions, but a big part of the auction profits are coming from sellers/wholesalers who are not even members of the local club.

I wasn't involved, but I'm guessing that even in the hay day of the "hobby", LFS owners were not getting rich. I suspect that they were only surviving because they were doing something they enjoyed and as yet there was no "market" to compete with them. I predict that local clubs will fare no better as long as their strategy is to make money from selling fish.

I know this forum isn't where the vast majority of ALA members hang out, but for those of us here I wonder how the ALA is handling this transition? Where do our operating funds come from? Are we still a hobbyist's club or a vehicle for selling something? Do we put ads in the "Trader" to exchange fish or do we put ads on AquaBid to try and make a few bucks? I wonder if we should change the name of the Trader? How about Traitor? or Seller? or Cellar?

Ok. I admit those last few comments crossed over the line of good judgment. But does anyone else share my frustration at the way things are going?

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Yes, why would that cause tension? It sounds like they are doing exactly the same thing, i.e., selective breeding. The only difference is the selection criteria.

Sorry, I just couldn't resist the temptation to get a little Cain and Abel action going among the different factions of afishyonados here.

I'll be taking bets on who will be the first to explain to me how terribly mistaken I am.

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The book has over 60 pages devoted to Quintana Roo in the Yucatan Peninsula. There is a large section on the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve and several individual cenotes within the reserve are described. Quite a lot of detail is given including GPS data, water parameters and many pictures of the mangrove molly in the algae covered biotope (along with a few cichlids, gobies, cyprinodons, etc). There are also several pages covering Xel-Ha Park which includes at least five shots of Poecilia orri in the water. There are an equal number of fascinating shots of Poecilia orri among the mangroves in the section covering Cenote Beh-Ha just inside the north entrance of Sian Ka'an.

Overall, I'd say that the chapter on Quintana Roo might be the strongest chapter in the book, and coverage of Poecilia orri is quite extensive.

Just an individual opinion after a quick scan. I haven't read the 60 pages.

Hope that helps a little.

Joel

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I did find the book of value. However, I had a very specific purpose in mind when I purchased it: I wanted to see nice photographs of some of the goodeid biotopes. There were only two chapters that had this material in it, one on San Luis Potosi and one on Michoacan. These two chapters focused mostly on the Media Luna system and La Mintzita respectively. Since I am very interested in both of those sites, I got what I expected, i.e., a general description of the area with some nice pictures.

There were also some other bonuses for a person of my particular interests. I got to see a picture of Omar Dominguez-Dominguez and also a picture of the La Luz Spring site.

Would I recommend the book? If you were a person who was interested in getting a general overview of the freshwater fish biotopes in Mexico, I would definitely recommend it. Someone who was already familiar with the subject matter would be disappointed with the lack of depth, but the book covers a huge area of Mexico, has general information and great pictures. There are also small sections on some of the local flora and fauna, again at a very high level. It is not so much a good "read" but a good "view".

That's my 2 cents.

As of a few weeks ago, they will accept a PayPal payment. I am a goodeid afficionado so I jumped straight to the two sections dealing with La Mintzita and the Media Luna system. They concentrate mostly on non-goodeid areas. If anyone has any specific questions about the book, I will be happy to search through my copy and let you know what I find.

Obviously I am not a photographer!!!