Re: [Killietalk] Another view on show participation

["wusong" <wusong at drunkenbastards_com>]

Lee, you may or may not be spreading yourself too thin - I wouldn't know, but I always viewed you and your fish room as "the ideal."  You produce consistently great fish.

There are many out there that don't.  I've always felt that needs to be addressed more thoroughly by the AKA.  As a member who formerly dropped out, I would like to chime in.

It is important to devote energy to those rare, hard-to-find, challenging killies, but one reason I lost patience with killie keeping was the largely shoddy breeding job done with many of the so-called "bread-and-butter" killies.  

When I was a member (late 90's), it seemed that the BNL was indeed often a dumping ground.  There were many times I recieved fish that had irregular patterns, or, worse, crooked jaws, or other deformities.  They became "nice to look at, but I'm sure as heck not breeding that."  There were many instances of fish that were outright frail, that should have been quite hardy.  

It is a good thing to try to conserve the rare rainforest jewels that give us an egg or two a day at best and throw skewed sex ratios, but after my brief time back, I'm wondering if proper breeding and culling is being emphasized enough (I'd be able to comment more authoritatively if I had my copy of of the new Beginner's guide - it's been over a month ;D) by the Association. We can talk about protecting a species from extinction, or even that Ultimate Pipe Dream of returning them to the wild (rolls eyes), but IS enough attention being paid to the gardneris, the gabunenses, the whiteis?  A few people have great looking strains of those fish (the last killie I had before I re-upped was a terrific line of N'sukka from Lee Harper, lost to me when I moved them into one of the lab tanks where I work - the helpful but clueless "fish room guy" drained and cleaned my tank for me while I was on vacation, flushing dozens of growing fry into the sewer, this a few day after my last fema!
 le jumped), but as a rule I have found the condition of most of the common species/pops to be pretty poor.

If we as a group can't preserve the "breeds like rats" killies out there, what chance do we have, what business do we have, working with YET ANOTHER cameronense/melanopteron/whateveritis population?  

Yikes...I'm getting sidetracked. This is a whole other topic.

ANYWAY, why not provide some $$$ incentives for new members/renewals?  A discount on renewal if you list in your first year.  A discount on renewal if you breed/distribute a rare species?  A discount on renewal for every entry in the national show?  Nothing like a little positive reinforcement...

-Dave

PS - if your gardneri or striatum are SHOW WORTHY, I say DO send them.  So what if a German judge rolls his eyes?  :D  Somebody over there will be happy for(and see the value in) the new blood.  Which to me is the MOST important reason for a better exchange of material between US and Europe - a larger gene pool.



 

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