Day two started off badly. First, we discovered that temperatures around 25°F with no heater made for a very cold night. Also, with no heat, the moist breaths of two humans and four dogs condensed on the canvas roof of the camper causing a steady rain of cold water. Cara had taken the back bed. I ... Read More
Fish
Gambusia Road Trip – Day 1
Day one started off slowly. First, I had check the greenhouse water pumps, something I thought would be done the day before. Second, we had load up supplies. Fortunately, Susie aided in this task (she desperately wanted us gone). We finally pulled away from the farm only five hours late at 11:00 ... Read More
Frozen in Balmorhea State Park
In January, one of my daughters and I made a trip around west Texas and southeastern New Mexico looking at rare Gambusia. One of these was G. nobilis an endangered fish. One of its homes is San Salomon Springs at Balmorhea State Park at Toyahville, Texas. While at the park we tried to photograph ... Read More
California Bound
I’ll be speaking twice this next week. On Sunday, March 1st I’ll speak at COAST (http://www.coastfishclub.com/ncms/) in Costa Mesa, California at 12:30 pm on fancy livebearers; how we breed and raise them. Then Friday, March 6th, I’ll speak at the San Francisco Aquarium Society ... Read More
Gambusia Road Trip – the Genesis
Gambusia Road Trip – The Genesis From January 4th to 8th of this year (2015), a daughter (Cara), three German Shepherd Dogs (Tally, Oso, and Maya), a Mountain Cur (Gus) and I went on a Gambusia road trip through west Texas and southern New Mexico. In this blog I’ll tell the genesis of the trip. ... Read More
Demise of Mom & Pop Fish Stores
Over the past five years we have seen the closings of several old and very good Mom & Pop fish stores. PhD Pets in Galveston closed after Hurricane Rita. Amazonia in Austin closed after many years of being Austin's best source for cichlids. Boutique in the Dallas area closed after 35 years in ... Read More
Red Lyretail Swordtail Experiment
One problem with raising lyretail swordtails is that the males are functionally sterile. While they produce viable sperm, they have an elongated gonopodium (a penis-like modified anal fin used to inject sperm into the female), which prevents them from mating. Lyretail in xiphophorines (members of ... Read More
Poecilia mexicana, Campeche
We recently processed our Poecilia mexicana, Campeche. We got this wild molly species in June 2009 from Dr. Ptacek of Clemson University. The "Campeche" notation indicates that Dr. Ptacek collected the fish in Campeche, Mexico. It has proven to be one of our most popular short finned mollies. The ... Read More
Quarantine Procedures
I got this question from Tim Gray of Beeville, Texas, that I think is very interesting, so I’m blogging about it: “Mr. Clapsaddle, could you explain your quarantine practices when bringing in wild stock or from unknown sources?” Here was my response: Tim, This is a great topic. We have ... Read More
Convict Cichlid Photo Contest
In our newsletter No. 11 we ran the following contest: “This month we are running another photo contest. I’m changing the contest from fish identification to something a bit more interesting (read, “more difficult”). The blurry photo below shows a mixed pair of Archocentrus nigrofasciatus, the ... Read More