Feb2008

CONTENTS Articles GHAC has an Auction!! p.1 January Meeting Pictures p.2 Fish of the Month p.3

NEWSLETTER February 2008

GHAC has an Auction in the works!

Plant of the Month p.3

By Raul Turner

Tank of the Month p.4

I just wanted to give the members a peek at one of many things to look forward to this year: GHAC is planning a large auction sometime in May! We will have a definite date and location in the next few weeks. Auctions are fun for both the seller and the buyer, and all of the income generated by the auction will go to the GHAC general fund. These funds will be used to pay for future club events, as well as special projects that will be designed to help kids learn about the wonders of the “Fish Hobby.” The next GHAC Newsletter will have more information about the auction. I anticipate this to be a large and successful auction. Tell your friends!

Meet a fellow GHAC member p.5 Water Basics p.5

Items of Interest

GHAC Officers p.2 How to contact the GHAC p.3 Useful Websites p.4

GHAC is currently looking for members who would like to join an Auction Committee that will work closely with the Club Officers in planning and working this event. If interested, please contact me or any of the Club Officers.

I should have gone to college and gone into real estate and got myself an aquarium, that's what I should have done. -Jeffrey Dahmer

January Meeting Pictures

Your GHAC Officers are: Raul Turner (rrocket2002) President

r Tim Bell (armthehomeless) Vice President

David Abeles (Tiapan) Co-Vice President

Loretta Mitchell (fishlady) Secretary

Mary Beth Petranek (Mzungu) Treasurer

Mike’s Tropical Fish and Pets 14203 Stuebner Airline Houston, Tx 77069 PH. 281-586-8787 Fax.281-586-8799 E-Mail. RunOverHere [at] hotmail [dot] com

The Home of Roy and Heidi Flis 9426 Laurel Wind Court Houston, Tx 77040 Email: [email protected] Phone: (713) 291-1138 Time: February 17th at 5:00PM

We want to hear from you. After all, you are the reason that we are here. Email any suggestions, comments, or questions to Raul_GHAC [at] yahoo [dot] com.

Plant of the Month

Anubias barteri

Fish of the Month Angelfish

By Tim Bell

Pterophyllum scalare

Anubias barteri is a hardy plant that has lush green arrow shaped leaves. This rosette plant may reach up to 16 inches in width and has thick, creeping rhizomes. Anubias barteri is an amphibious form of Anubius that will survive either totally or partially submersed in water, making it a great choice for paladariums as well.

By Tim Bell

Anubias barteri prefers low to moderate lighting— approximately 1.5 to 3 watts per gallon provided by a fluorescent fixture with daylight bulbs (5000-7000°K). A pH of 6.5 to 7.5 is ideal, and is best maintained with an alkalinity of 3 to 7 dKH. With this said, Anubias barteri can actually tolerate a wide range of water conditions. When planting the aquatic plant, take special care of the rhizome and the roots. In order to keep these plants small, simply trim back the leaves near the rhizome with a sharp pair of scissors. Since anubias barteri grows well from cuttings, you can usually propagate it easily. Under correct water conditions, the Anubias barteri spreads by side shoots on the rhizome, causing rhizome division. It attaches itself to rocks, driftwood (my personal favorite), substrate, and may even float. Anubias barteri makes a great beginner plant and a welcome addition to any tank.

Pterophyllum scalare, whose common name is the Angelfish, was one of the first and is the most popular of the New World Cichlids brought into the United States. Angels are relatively flat or laterally compressed fish that attain a body size of approximately 3 inches. They have extraordinarily long (high) dorsal and anal fins that can add 6 or so inches to their height. A full-grown angel can measure maybe 5 inches long and 9 or 10 inches high. There is also a mutation, called the veiltail, which adds 3 or 4 inches to the length and width. I have seen large veiltail angels that were a foot high and 8 inches long, laid out. The original angelfish is a silver fish with black stripes. Care must be taken when buying angelfish. If you want show fish or good breeder stock, buy from a reputable dealer. Some people indiscriminately attach erroneous and often made up names for Angels. According to Angels Plus, one of the largest suppliers of quality Angels in the US, this is a list of all angelfish color mutations as of this writing. Note there are only eight. They are Gold, Gold Marble, Marble, Zebra, Smokey, Black, Half Black and Albino. Add the wild type angel (silver) and you have a total of nine types that make up all angelfish. Reprinted from their website is this warning. Steve Rybicki states, "There are two other significant genes that affect the look of angels. One is Stripeless and the other is Pearlscale. These are not color genes but can have an effect on the look of the color genes. The other major gene people are concerned with is Veil, which simply affects the length of the fins. All angel hybrids are derived from the above listed mutations. Since you can have literally dozens of possible hybrids, to reduce confusion, I use the names that were originally given these fish by the people first making the cross and publishing the results. When I cross a Smokey with Pearlscale the result is a Smokey Pearlscale, not a Blue Diamond Crystal. Beware of the person renaming angelfish. Why would they do this? It couldn't be that they want to fool you into thinking they have something different so you would spend your money there, could it? Granted, not all Gold Marbles Pearlscales are identical. Some have been selectively bred to look a little different from other Gold Marbles Pearlscales, but that doesn't make one a "Red Headed Tangerine" angel unless that is the generally accepted name for that hybrid. Every worthwhile mutation is written about in a national publication shortly after introduction to the hobby (within a few months). Ask what issue it is in if someone claims to have a new mutation that is worth having. If it's just a hybrid the person has, then you can make it too, if you want. By the way, people do not "develop" mutations. They are freak occurrences of nature. Significant and useful ones happen rarely, with angels, less than two or three dozen times in the last 50 years."

Tank of the Month We want to see your tanks! Send us a photo of your tank along with a brief description of the flora, fauna, water parameters, equipment used, and anything else you want to include. We will post a new tank each month!! Let us see what you are working with…

New website coming…

www.myghac.org

February TOTM Tim Bell’s 80 Gallon Oceanic Planted Aquarium

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Dimensions: 48” x 18” x 12” Substrate: Potting Soil capped with Fluorite Lighting: Coralife 4 x 65W with 6500k bulbs Shop light with 2 x 40W fluorescent wide spectrum bulbs Filtration: Fluval 405 packed with ceramic media, sponges, and filter floss Water Changes: 30-40% every three weeks Flora: Anubius afzeli, Anubius barteri, Anubius nana, Anubius nana “petite”, Myriophyllum heterophyllum, Cryptocoryne crispatula “balansae”, Cryptocoryne Lucens, Cryptocoryne Wendtii, Bolbitis heudelotii, Microsorum pteropus, Microsorum pteropus “Wendelov”, Microsorum pteropus “Narrow leaf”, Chladophora Aegagropila, Nymphaea lotus, Vallisneria spiralis, Vallisneria Americana, Rotala sp., Hygrophilia sp., etc… Fauna: 2 Leleupi (Neolamprologus leleupi), 4-6 Amano Shrimp (Caridina japonica), 14 Turquoise Rainbowfish (Melanotaenia lacustri)s, 6 Longfin Albino BN (Ancistrus sp. “Longfin Albino”)

Meet a Fellow GHAC Member This Month: David Abeles I have lived in Houston my whole life and I love it here. My interest in fish started with an overall interest in animals. When I was very young, I was fascinated by dinosaurs. The interest shifted towards sharks for several years and then to reptiles. I purchased a pair of veiled chameleons. They had quite an appetite, and I had to order large boxes of crickets from a small pet/fish store to feed them, named Aquamart. When I was 15, I decided to ask to get a job there. That is when I really started to learn about fish tanks – both freshwater and saltwater. I had frogs, turtles, the chameleons, an iguana, a dog, and a couple of cats, but I had never had a fish tank. I got an Eclipse System Six from Aquamart and then proceeded to overload it with way too many fish and super gaudy decorations. It had black and blue gravel with a “No Fishing” shark ornament. I still have that tank, although the light no longer works. The second tank I got was a 29 gallon that I made a saltwater tank. I eventually broke it down after four years and made it a planted freshwater after I met Tim and saw what a true planted aquarium could look like. I met Tim when he started working at Petsmart about 4 years ago. He has of course moved on, and I have been promoted at Petsmart, but because of him I have turned into a fish addict. I now keep several different kinds of fish from livebearer community fish, to Lake Tanganyika cichlids. One thing stays the same: all of my tanks have plants in them. I try to make them look as natural as possible. I really enjoy the beauty of live plants in my tanks. My largest tank is a 75 gallon tank and I have several more all the way down to a 5 gallon hex. I still have other pets like my dog (Taz Roadhouse), my snake (Cloak), and the girlfriend's cat which still doesn’t have a name, but I would say that keeping fish is my primary (and most expensive) hobby.

Water Basics-What’s important and what’s not. By Roy Flis

After keeping tropical fish since 1960, I have learned certain truths. Among them are: 1. Water parameters (pH and hardness) are far less important to your fishes well being than many authors and pet shop owners would have you believe. 2. Large regular water changes solve many fish keeping problems. Let’s start with pH and hardness: pH – The scale used to show the acidity or alkalinity of water. 7.0 is considered neutral, lower is acidic, higher alkaline. Most fish will easily adjust to whatever ph your tap water is and live quite happily in it (breeding in it may be a different story). Trying to change your water’s pH, up or down, to meet what some author describes as the required pH, commonly results in 3 things – 1. your pet shop owner will be a little richer from the sales of chemicals to you, 2. your tank water will quickly become “chemical soup” and 3. you will need to buy new fish (see making pet shop owner richer) to replace the ones you have just killed. Use a slow drip method when you bring your fish home from the pet shop and they will be just fine in your dechlorinated tap water. Hardness- there are 2 primary scales used here, German hardness and general hardness. Both are ways of measuring the mineral content of your water. Again, there are ways of altering this - exchange resins, peat moss, chemicals - but stop. Unless you are attempting to breed your fish, DON’T do it. See reasons 1 through 3 above regarding pH. Mother Nature rarely provides a 100% stable pH and/or hardness. Her rainy and dry seasons cause rapid, large fluctuations in pH and mineral content of most rivers and lakes (excluding our oceans and giant lakes such as in Africa). Most fish easily cope with these fluctuations, thank you very much. Remember, fish DON’T read books or operate pet shops, but my 4+ year old cardinals are doing VERY well in my clean, “hard as rocks” 8.0 pH tap water that gets changed 50% every single week (in Nature, cardinals typically live for 1 year). This brings us to ammonia, nitrite and nitrates, which are the reasons to do large frequent water changes, but that’s for next time….