Welcome,

I am sure that there are others around Maine that share your love. Unfortunately I live in Michigan. you can always look at aquaid.com for different strains of livebearers.

Good luck

Nice list of questions.

Yes, this will be at a hotel.

The hotel address escapes me at the moment

We are hoping to be able to have people start registering next week for both hotel and convention (both done separately)

I am not sure about plastic at the auction; details are still being worked out.

There will be a package deal for the convention and special room rates for the hotel

Yes, if you sponsor a class you can still enter fish in that class

I believe that Tom does species maintenance and you will have to ask him about CARES

We are working on a couple collecting field trips and a workshop or two plus a meeting of the Goodeid Working Group on Friday.

Welcome to the ALA. The Buffalo area is a nice area.

You might be surprised at the number of fish people in your area. There is a local club called Tropical Fish Club of Erie County http://tropical-fish-club-of-erie-county.com/home/ that you might want to check out.

Wow, that looks really nice. I wish I could make stands that look like that. Mine are just cinder blocks with 2X4 cross members or purchased ones.

Not that I know of, the best thing would be to contact Rich Serva on the ALA Officers page and ask.

1. I feed flake, frozen foods such as daphnia & bloodworms, and live foods such as Blackworms, grindal worms, daphnia/cyclops and algae. Ideally, I would only feed live food for all of my fish but costs in time and dollars makes that prohibitive.

2. For flake, I use the store brand from the local Aquarium specialty store in my city. The food is good quality and it is what they feed their stock (at one time I fed Tetra or Wardley but they are all pretty much the same and good quality). For frozen foods I use Hikari brand BioPure foods as I think they are a good quality and consistent. For live foods, I buy Blackworms. I collect daphnia/cyclops from local lakes. If I am really ambitious I will also hunt for scuds. I maintain about 10 grindal worm cultures.

3. As far as who gets what it depends on the species, stage of growth (fry, sub adults or breeding fish) and what I am doing with the fish (growing them out to sell them or prepping them for breeding).

4. I always use my hands for flake food. When feeding fry, I crush the flake between my fingers. Frozen foods are thawed in a cup of water and then small portions dumped into tanks. Blackworms are scooped out of the container with a fork and put into each tank.

5. I do not spill very much food.

6. The amount of food each tank gets is determined by the number of fish in the tank, size of the fish and requirements of each fish. Experience with each species guides how much food is given.

7. I always over feed my fish. All of my tanks are well planted and what doesn’t get eaten by the fish is eaten by snails or used by the plants. I also do water changes frequently on most tanks so water quality doesn’t suffer.

8. I do not watch each tank while the fish are eating, watching someone eat is just rude, LOL. I do, however, inspect each tank after I am done feeding all of the tanks to make sure there are not any issues.

9. I do not clean out uneaten food.

10. I don’t normally use fry tanks for livebearers. For other species such as Cory catfish and gobies I just pour out the water and then add more. For other species like Danios or rainbow fish, I use a fine mesh net and scope water out from it.

11-12. I have 35 tanks set up with fish right now and I am trying to get that number down to 25 but don’t think that will happen any time soon. All of my tanks are normally fed 6 days a week 1-2 times a day.

I have had the first two and I know in my club at least one person still has them so they are in the hobby. You can try MrSouthwest on aquabid as he seems to have many different species even if he doesn't have an auction going for them at the current time. Those should be a 2 or 3 with 1 being the easiest to find and 10 the hardest. Around my home, you will even find a local fish shop that has them from time to time.

I have never seen the third fish on your list for sale. You may have to work to find that one. I would give it a 8 or 9 unless you know someone who imports from Uruguay which does have some aquarium fish exporting business.

Yes, if you are a dues paying ALA member there is a classifieds section on the left hand side of the screen right under the home button. There is also a publication called the trader which comes out a couple times per year.

I know that the board likes to hold these in various locations 2007 was going to be in the Northwest until it fell through, 2008 was in San Antonio, Then I Think it was in Indianapolis, Detroit, Ohio and 2012 in Florida. Remember that the ALA needs a host club and the host club needs to submit a proposal at or before the convention to be considered for the following year's convention.

If you have an active club in Texas submit a proposal. 2008 was a great convention. I wish I was in a position to go to this year's convention but it didn't work out.

Next year promises to be a great convention.

The convention will be in Grand Rapids MI, hosted by the Grand Valley Aquarium Club. The weekend will be April 25, 26, 27 & 28.

A nice short drive from Chicago.