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
tropical fish
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
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
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
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
Equipment for Collecting Trips
The photo shows the author and a son collecting fish using a seine net. Grandchildren are optional equipment when collecting. In Newsletter No. 11 I set up the following contest: “We are continuing the Email Contest and will give a free (including shipping) two pound bag of Simple Pet Products ... Read More
Fish tip: Fish Feeding
This post is a section from the August 2013 Goliad Farms monthly newsletter. Sign up to receive the full monthly newsletter here. How to Feed Your Fish: Get plastic fish; they require no care! Okay, seriously, feeding is one of the most misunderstood aspects of the hobby, probably because ... Read More
Collecting Trip to Mustang Island
Recently my family rented a house on Mustang Island at Port Aransas, Texas for a family outing. Mustang Island is a barrier island just north of and similar to the more famous Padre Island. While there, I managed to arrange a quick collecting trip to two sites. The first was a bayside sand flat and ... Read More
How We Raise Livebearers
This blog results from an email I got from a hobbyist, Christy. She wrote: “Hello, I'm a small hobbyist and I was wondering if you would share your breeding setups for platies and mollies. It sounds like you get a good number of fish from your tanks with the schedule and setup. Best of ... Read More
Poeciliopsis gracilis, the Porthole Livebearer
The photo is of a pair of Poeciliopsis gracilis, the porthole livebearer, male right and female left. We acquired our starting breeders of this species from Rusty Wessel in 2008. Rusty collected the fish from Rio Copan in Honduras. I recently wrote a column about them for Tropical Fish Hobbyist. ... Read More