[APD] Jumping fish and the Menagerie Petshop in Toronto

["Richard J. Sexton" <richard at aquaria_net>]

If you have an open tank and you have fish that are inclided to
jump, they will do so. If you're trying to keep something like
Rivulus yolu have to literally duct tape even the *slightest*
crack or they'll get out. 

If you want an open top tank you have to choose fish that don't
dump.

When was the last time you saw a discus jump out of a tank? Or
a puffer? Or a pipefish?

The Menagerie is the best petshop I've seen anywhere, ever. Most
of that is becaue Harold Slater runs the fish department. He's
been around on usenet in fish circles for at least 15 years and
is an enthusiastic as ever about getting new and weird stuff
which he'll do on a whim. As far as I can tell he can get anything,
period.

When I was a kid I lived about 40 miles from Toronto and
a big deal was going into the city and I remember 3 stores
worth visiting in the city proper: the Pirana Shop, Aquarium
Toronto on Danforth and Bill Veleer's place. I can't remember
the name of if now, does anybody remember that far back and
was it indeed Menagerie?

Aquarium Toronto on Danforth closed shortly after I moved
from that area (coincidence, I'm sure; my wife may disagree)
and I haven't seen anything interesting at the Pirana ship
in decades. I consider myself pretty jaded and it's not
otfen I'll go into a store and see something I've only seen
in pictures. Occasionally in some stores in New York, LA
or the Bay area it'll happen that I'll see fish that you don't
normally see in stores or see the odd fish you've never seen
before even after all these years, or maybe even two. But. At the
Menagerie I've been amazed at the number of times I've stared
into a tank and seen 3 things in that tank alone I've never
seen before, and lsoe track of how many new fish I saw.

I went yesterday and saw, for the first time, some pygmey
pipefish, amazon puffers, some weird barbs and some odd
population of some weird rainbow. They had about a dozen species
of Apistos, and a bunch of killies. Keep in mind though, it's
a small neighborhood petshop, not a huge fish place. The fish area
is quite small, 15' x 8' maybe and there are not hundreds of
tanks and they are not large. But you'll never see a "floater"
there, and if you look very carefully into each tank you'll see
things you probably havn't seen. Or just ask Harold what's new,
every after studying tanks for half an hour you still probably
missed half the stuff, at least I did. There's a small marine
section and all the tanks are perfect.


I'm trying to take a few pics and put them online every time I go
there and hope others latch onto the idea. Send me pics or urls
of pics from your favorite store and I'll put them online. Don't
worry you only feel weird for the first 5 minutes taking pictures
of fish in store tanks.

http://images.aquaria.net/stores/Canada/Ontario/Toronto/Menagerie/05/



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