June2008

CONTENTS Articles

NEWSLETTER

Upcoming Events p.1 Meet a fellow GHAC member p.2

June 2008

Fish of the Month p.3

Upcoming Events By Tim Bell

Tank of the Month p.4 Introduction of New Sponsors p.6 Plant of the Month p.6

Items of Interest

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

We’ve got an action - packed summer for you. In a few short days, there will be a “Swap and Sell” event at my house. It is a great opportunity to clear out that box of extra stuff, and see if anybody else wants it. Additionally, if you have a fish that just doesn’t seem to fit in well with your other fish, bag it up! This is a great opportunity to meet others as well. The event is from 9am until 1pm on June 7th at 1709 Brun Street, 77019. Feel free to park on the street outside. Our monthly meeting will be at Derek’s place which is at 2115 Runnels, 77003. This is a central location to help minimize everyone’s drivetime. The event will start at 7:45 on June 20th and will last until someone kicks us out! Also coming up is our first aquatic presentation. It will be given by nationally known planted aquarist (and native Houstonian) Luis Navarro. Luis will impart some of his knowledge upon us in a presentation entitled “Aquascaping and step-by-step installation of a planted aquarium” at the Aquarium Design Group facilities (www.aquariumdesigngroup.com) at 2pm on June 28th.

“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing it is not fish they are after.”

-Henry David Thoreaou

David looking like he knows what he is doing.

Nick – “He stopped making my food, now he must PAY!”

Meet a Fellow GHAC Member This Month: Jesper Houken (Zulaab) I started keeping tanks around my 3rd grade when at the time my best friend moved to the USA from Denmark. We got a 70L (18.5G) community tank of which we kept a pair of Angelfish with some Neon Tetra's and Tiger Barbs. Over the years several of the fish were replaced. This tank was in my house until I was 16yrs of age (7yrs later) when our family moved r to Houston, TX in 1985. After getting the original community tank, I asked my dad if I could have a tank in my room. My Dad said “Okie” and I bought a 55L tank and a little 20L tank. I planted the 55L with Amazon Swords, and promptly inserted some cool fish I saw at the LFS -- later I found out that they were Firemouths, and my LFS was really nice and picked a male and a female for me. It would not be many weeks before they started to breed and I thought, “Man, none of my other fish friends ever had any of their fish breed!” I then asked my dad if I could buy a big tank. He agreed; and I bought a 160L tank (42.5G). This was a monster tank for me. I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Remember at the time a 250L tank was considered the biggest tank you could even conceive of wanting to keep, because no one had bigger tanks than that. I knew people who to try to save money built their own 250L tanks (100cm x 50cm x 50cm) and my friend had three breeding pairs of Firemouths in one of them with a massive breeding group of guppies to give them live food. When I bought the 160L I thought was the king and I went out and spent my money on 4 brown Discus. They lived for a few months in that tank but one day Continued on Page 5

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.

Your GHAC Officers are: Raul Turner (rrocket2002) President

Tim Bell (armthehomeless) Vice President

David Abeles (Tiapan) Co-Vice President

Loretta Mitchell (fishlady) Secretary

Mary Beth Petranek (Mzungu) Treasurer

Fish Gallery Store Hours Monday-Saturday 10am-8pm Sunday 12pm-5pm

Fish of the Month

The Oscar Astronotus ocellatus By Tim Bell

General: Astronotus ocellatus, whose common name is the Oscar, is one of the largest of the popular New World Cichlids. Although the Oscar can attain sizes up to 14 inches or so, it is rare to see one over 12 inches. They are a great cichlid to raise in a tank all by itself and can also work in a mixed tank of large fish. They are very intelligent fish and are quite personable. This is most likely why they are so popular. They learn very quickly when it’s feeding time and there is virtually no limit as to what an Oscar can do when enticed with food. They will, with a little training, eat out of your hand. I even had one that would jump about 6 inches out of the water to get a treat. Oscars have long been a favorite of cichlid lovers. They have been around in the hobby for 50 years, and have several variants: Tiger Oscars, Red Tiger Oscars, Red Oscars, Albino Tiger Oscars, Albino Red Oscars, and long-finned Oscars.

Habitat: Oscars are indigenous to central South America. However, it adapts so easily to water conditions that they are found in many lakes in the southern United States. Some Houston bayous have had Oscar sightings. Like I said earlier, they get big and when they outgrow their tanks people dump them into lakes, ponds and bayous. One should never place a fish in a nonindigenous environment. The Oscars do fine, but in many cases they disturb the whole ecological balance of a lake, pond, or bayou and cause other species to disappear, just like the Nile Perch is doing to Lake Victoria. This is why there are conservation efforts for many cichlids native to Lake Victoria.

Care: The Oscar likes his water wet. Other than that, they aren’t the fussiest of fish. Their natural environment is the soft acid waters of South American rivers, but they tolerate just about any water conditions well. They do however like a water temperature range of 72 to 85 degrees F with 76-78 degrees optimum.

Feeding: Oscars are predators and can have a mean streak although they will usually get along with fish that are the same size. I mention this under feeding because that’s exactly what you will be doing if you put anything considerably smaller than the Oscar as its roommate. Oscars will and can eat anything. They will eat flake foods, pellets, worms, crickets, goldfish or anything else you can think of. I have seen Oscars eat whole jumbo shrimp as well as strips of steak. A roommate of mine fed one a “pinky” mouse that his snake didn’t like. Babies will eat a finely granulated flake or newly hatched brine shrimp or anything else they can fit into their mouths. A common mistake amongst Oscar keepers is to feed them only goldfish. This contributes to a deficiency in the Oscar’s diet and may result in diseases like Hole in the Head Disease.

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…

Check out our great new website…

www.myghac.org

June TOTM Tim’s 150 Gallon Tank

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• Dimensions: 72" x 18" x 30" • Substrate: Leslie’s Pool Filter Sand • Lighting: 1 x 48” Full spectrum Fluorescent Bulb • Filtration: Pro Clear 150 Wet/Dry, Eheim 2017 • Water Changes: 30% every week • Flora: None • Fauna: Yellow Labs (Labidochromis caeruleus), Turquoise Rainbowfish (Melanotaenia lacustris), Electric Blue Cichlid (Sciaenochromis ahli)

Meet a Member (Continued from page 2) almost all of them simultaneously committed suicide. It was a devastating blow to my ego as a fish keeper, but not out, I thought, “Okie – I like dwarf cichlids”, and I bought a pair of German Rams. These guys I bred several times but not knowing any better I never could get the young to survive for long. Please remember at this time I made most of all my tanks community tanks with way more fish than should be there. In time I ended up with six tanks downstairs in my room and the one upstairs community tank in the living room. I had bred and kept a ton of fish, all South American and most of them cichlids. Firemouths, convicts, German Rams, Apistogramma, Angelfish, my brown Discus, and a ton more fish I don’t remember. I never got into Africans until I set up tanks here in Houston. In 1985, my fishing hobby came to an abrupt halt as we moved from Denmark to Houston, TX in the summer.I sold everything and promised myself. I will get back into fish again once I get a house and settle down. I bought (around Halloween 2006) a new house in Katy, TX. At the time I didn’t think of tanks at all. I thought about how I wanted to live there because the schools are good and I wanted to settle down and have kids and have a family. I had one of my best friends move in with me together with his two kids. One day while he and his girlfriend visited his sister, she sent my roommate home with a Oceanic 58G tank and fish and said, "Give them to Jesper. I know how much he likes looking at our 135G." I was instantly hooked again. It would not be long before I sold off the fish I didn’t want and got back into fish I wanted to have. I was thinking I wanted South Americans, but as soon as I meet people on the fishbox, and visited Tim Bell, I was ABSOLUTELY hooked on African Cichlids. With Tim’s Tropheus, I thought to myself, “I want those fish one of these days”. I asked questions and learned that a 58G was not going to be big enough for a colony. I had bought by then 4 more tanks, a 20T, 20L a 5.5G and a 29G. I quickly filled these tanks with fish, all of which I thought would be cool. The 20T I gave to my roommate’s son for him to have guppies and other fish for himself. I bought some Occelatus and they are still living in the 20L (hopefully they will breed for me). I bought some Leleupi's which are all in the 29G tank. As they grew up, I quickly noticed I wanted more and more. A 70G and a 75G was added over time with Brichardis, Yellow Labs, Peacocks, and Electric Blue Icebergs and a ton of other fish I got over the last few months. My last purchase was a 42 cube tank which I am using right now to grow out my first colony of Tropheus… a Duboisi group. They are still all polka dots…I love them to death. We are making some changes to the house and with that I will buy a 180g tank where the Tropheus duboisi colony will live. I would like to keep my Dubs and some more Tropheus... we will see what the future brings.

The GHAC proudly welcomes our new sponsor…

Derek’s Home 2115 Runnels Houston TX 77003 June 20th, 7:45pm to ???

New Sponsors By Tim Bell The Greater Houston Aquarium Club would like to thank two very important local fish stores for deciding to sponsor us. Both Megan’s Tropical Emporium and Fish Gallery have recognized the importance of encouraging a large group of hobbyists in the greater Houston area. They have chosen to donate materials to the club to use as door prizes, raffle and auction items, etc… You will be able to get a discount at both stores if you tell the cashier that you are a member of the Greater Houston Aquarium Club (membership cards coming soon!).

Pictures from the May Meeting

Plant of the Month

Dwarf Sag Sagittaria sublata By Tim Bell

Range: Eastern North America Height: Varies. In low light tanks growth can exceed 12". In higher light CO2 enriched tanks, it rarely exceeds 2" in height. Water: Does well in most water conditions from soft to hard, with pH ranging from 6.2-7.8. Dwarf sag is often recommended as a foreground “lawn” plant. In most tanks with stock lighting it performs well, but grows to become more of a background plant, similar to Vallisneria. With an increase in light and nutrients, it quickly turns into the foreground plant for which many people recommend it. One condition that dwarf sag seems to find particularly hard to adapt to is a large sized substrate. Medium gravel and larger seem to stop this plant from really growing at all. When I had first kept this plant I had no luck with it. The plants didn’t grow, they didn’t die, they did nothing. After about 6 months I changed my substrate from the aquarium gravel I had, to pool filter sand. The change was incredible. Within a week I had new plantlets popping out all over the place. The plants never grew past the 2-3" mark, but they spread into a nice lawn fairly quickly. If you have a bit in gravel that isn’t doing much, try mixing a little sand around the plant and see what happens.