Re: [Killietalk] Killietalk Digest, More good, old books

[Scott Davis <unclescott at prodigy_net>]

Mark, I hope you feel less down in the mouth soon. I wouldn't be doing so well soon after oral surgery.

If those were the two slim volumes on spawning problem fish out in about 1972 I think they were by Willy Jocker, translated from the German. He also wrote the slim but useful book on foods for aquarium and terrarium (which included some items startlingly unfamiliar to aquarists, but probably not to herp people..) Talk about good things in small packages!

Either for those who read those books soon afterwards or some years later - as in my case - they may have had a revolutionary impact upon participation in the hobby. Jocker assumed that fish could be spawned. If they thrived with the tap water and food a person could conveniently provide, so much the better. In an elegantly simple approach, if the fish weren't spawning one should check the nature of the fish's native waters for basic chemistry, especially mineral level and temperature. Adjustments should be made while endeavoring to feed as many live foods (or veggies in selected cases) as possible. Simpler said then done, he challenged the aquarist to find out all that he could about the fish's diet, biology, habitat and spawning habits. 

Guys like Scheel in his letters, articles, and ROTOW were already doing that, but here was a person painting that theme across the entire freshwater hobby. In a sense that was also what innovators in the marine hobby would begin doing later.

I'm not privy to what was going on at TFH back then (or ever) but one could also see those volumes as precursors for Axelrod's sometimes very useful series on breeding aquarium fishes, The latter, in larger print, by their very nature could be interpreted as a tribute to Jocker's books.

All the best!
Scott

Anubias Design <anubiasdesign at yahoo_com> wrote: Larry,
  That's a good one.  Another good spawning series is, I think, Breeding (or Spawning?) Problem Fishes by Richter, which is 2 books published by TFH.  I could be wrong on that.  I'm in bed after oral surgery and not going to go downstairs to check the bookshelf tonight.
  Mark


Hello Everyone,
I have one more little "classic" aquarium/fish breeding book that is a gem of a find if you should ever run across it. "Breeding Aquarium Fishes", published by the now long defunct, Aquarium Stock Company, 1961.
A collection of breeding "recipes" translated from German to English.
Full of useful info that never goes out of date. The attention to details is amazing that these pioneering breeders took to spawn fish over 75 years ago that we still consider "difficult" fishes to breed, incuding many killifish.
Regards,
Larry Waybright

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