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Trip Report - long



Last saturday I drove 500 miles all over Ontario. I dropped my wife at her
dads then went to visit a few places. 8 hours later I picked her up and went
home. It took 19 hours and covered 500 miles. Thank God I have a diesel car
that gets 30 MPG. 

First I went to Burlington Ontario to try to find some hydrophylitic clay from a
hydroponics shop. No luck, I tried three and none had it. I give up. I'll
use the
lump of grey potting clay I have here now until the spring when I can get up to
Terra Cotta Ontario just north of Toronto and get some of the local Iron rich
clay. 

Next I went to a new aquarium store in Burlington called "That Aquarium
Place" at 678 Guelph Line, North of New St, South of the QEW. Nice store
- over 500 tanks. 

I grew up in Burlington and while I don't live there any more I sure wish this
store had been there 20 or 30 years ago! 

They had about 20 used tanks for sale at a buck a gallon: 25's and 35's. 

I saw 3 or 4 varieties of guppies I'd never seen before "Tequila sunrise" and a
few I'd only seen in pictures "double swords, "lyre tails" and what seemed like
all white ones. They were huge. 

They had a tank full of killies - Aplocheilus Dayi. Not uncommon, but they're
so common you never see them. There was one absolutely spectacular male
so I got him and got two females. By the time I got home Mr. Spectacular
male had trashed fins and didn't look so healthy any more, the one big female
was a colorless male and the other small female was, well, small. Oh well,
guess I'll go back soon. 

They has rather a lot of plants, oddly, in clay pots. The most impressive was
the Rotala indica. I've never seen it that big or beautiful. 

They had a few crypts - nothing notable except for one plant that looked like
a wendtii type, about 3-4" except it had One leaf that was HUGE. Almost a
foot long. I probably should have bought it in retrospect. 

They had val like you wouldn't believe - all species I think, and oddly all the
new and young growth was transparent and pink. Really weird. 

Nest I went to Charlie Drews house. I've known Chuck for about 25 years,
he was the only guy in Burlington that bred killifish and still does
although his
emphasis is more on characins these days. And crypts. Ho boy does this man
have crypts. 

Although he tore it down last year, he's always had this tank, square, about 2
feet on each side that had what he has always called "red crypts" in it. The
plants had spear shaped leaves on 2 foot stems, dark dark green on top and
red/purple underneath. He's had these plants since the 60's. He got them from
a guy who got them from a guy who got them from Ceylon although they
aren't sure about the Ceylon part. Jim Robinson mentioned when he got his
shipment of C. usteriana from the Phillipines that they looked suspiciously like
Charlies plants and I do agree. I'll have to go back and take pictures. They
were apparently the same as the crypts Shirleys Aquatics was selling as Crypt.
grandis, and in these parts these plants are known as "Charlies Crypt grandis".
He gave me two of these. 

He also gave me: 

     "Dwarf lucens" 
     Barclaya longifolia 
     C. walkeri (?) 
     Aponogeton stachysporous 
     Anubias lanceolata 
     A. unknown. 

and two female Ps. annulatus bringing me up to 6 pairs even. 

He had dozens of tanks of rare characins he's bred and a new form of white
clouds that he's created. He'll be writing an article about this. in the future.
Perhaps the most impressive thing I saw there was a tank with about 200 F1
wild Peruvian scalare. With Angels being all messed up these, seeing that
many *perfect* young scalare was a tremendously impressive sight. 

I gave him a pair of dwarf red gularis. I had an awesome sandwich in
Denningers (cheaper than the McDonalds next door, go figure, as Denningers
is an expensive store) and headed on over to Jim Robinson's. 

Jim is going to order a few thousand more crypts in a few days so picking
were slim, but here's what I got: 

     3-4 Crypt cordata ("blassi") 
     Najas 
     Val asiatica 
     a handful of C. aponogetifolia 
     and two pair of outrageously stunning red/gold Apistogramma agassizi. 

Oh, and we found the Crypt. pygmae, so now I have one. I gave Jim a pair of
dwarf red gularis, too. 

All in all a great, great trip. 

Contact info:

Jim Robinson - jim at aquaria_net +1 (905) 278-8469
Charlie Drew - +1 (905) 332-4113
That Aquarium Place, 678 Guelph Line, Burlington, Ontario, +1 (905)
639-1974 

--
Richard J. Sexton                                         richard at aquaria_net
Maitland House, Bannockburn, Ontario, Canada, K0K 1Y0       +1 (613) 473 1719