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PCS & Stuart M. Grant - Cichlid Preservation Fund - Details here


Mattia

Member Since 19 Oct 2014
Offline Last Active Apr 20 2021 02:00 PM

#359403 February Meeting - P.c.s. Auction

Posted by Mattia on 08 February 2017 - 08:06 PM

Thanks to everyone who came and bid on the many lots available at the auction!!

It was a good and pretty smooth night!
 

Hope everyone got what they wanted!!

 

We have a new RECORD of $ raised for the SGCF in one night...

 

$2215!!!!! :)




#359317 Very Young Red Bay Snook Pair Forming

Posted by Mattia on 05 February 2017 - 09:05 PM

Nice fish!! Do you ever feed them live food?

I've found that they're hard to "fatten" up , they eat loads and get a nice big belly, but after few hours they go back to being a bit "skinny" like the ones in your pic... or maybe it's just me that like to see well fed fish :)


#359305 Amphilaphus Festae

Posted by Mattia on 05 February 2017 - 02:05 PM

Good job hood!! Put it up on the BAP! ;)


#359168 Anyone Growing Chillies?

Posted by Mattia on 31 January 2017 - 09:10 PM

Big Thanks to "ice" for bringing me so much chilli!! :)

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I have made my chilli oil and powder, I'll try it soon and let you know how hot it is! :D

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What variety is it?


#359161 January 2017 Cichlid Import In Wa - From The East Coast

Posted by Mattia on 31 January 2017 - 07:28 PM

Always exciting when you get a new fish :)

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What did everyone get??


#359156 Fish Of The Month February

Posted by Mattia on 31 January 2017 - 07:05 PM

There will be 10 of these available for grab at the auction!! Two lots of 5 ;)




#359148 February Meeting - P.c.s. Auction

Posted by Mattia on 31 January 2017 - 03:08 PM

Its next week Jason :)


#358997 Sponsor Stimulus Competition 2016.

Posted by Mattia on 26 January 2017 - 10:46 PM

If you spend $55, you get 2 tickets.

Then, if you spend $5 more, either in the same or in a different store, your total will be of $60 spent, so you will get another ticket! Easy peasy! :)

How's everyone doing so far?? Lots of entries?


#358942 Cracked Baffle

Posted by Mattia on 24 January 2017 - 07:50 AM

Get a glass strip same measure of the crack and silicone it on... there's an underwater silicone which is very strong and will seal underwater as well (Gold label)

Or if you want to be safer, get a piece of glass just a few mm smaller than the cracked baffle and glue that on, it should hold better than a strip.


#358941 Something Different, Mormyrid Sp.

Posted by Mattia on 24 January 2017 - 07:47 AM

That's pretty awesome Ronny!!

Is this one of those that gets huge like the ones that live in Lake Malawi?


#358898 Cichlid Preservation Fund

Posted by Mattia on 22 January 2017 - 10:49 AM

A nice update from Ad Konings, great news everyone!!    
Dear Friends,

Here follows a short update on what happened since last summer on the cichlid conservation front in Malawi and Tanzania. 

The Saulosi

Last October Larry Johnson and his safari group went again to Taiwanee Reef to check on the developments of the Saulosi (now called Chindongo saulosi). Stuart Grant Ltd at Kambiri Point continues to breed this species and David had given Larry about 65 juveniles and about 100 babies to reintroduce at the reef. Because of the extreme low lake level—the 2016 rainy season was very poor in Malawi with little or no rain at all—they could see the rocks at the reef and didn’t use the GPS to locate it. Larry said that he was at a different part of the reef where he hadn’t been before. He did a count by himself for 10 minutes at a depth where there was a good number of C. saulosi, but not as many as he remembered from last year at the other part of the reef. Nevertheless he counted about 150 fish! There were no groups travelling around the reef and they seemed to be in spawning mode. Larry figures that this part of the reef is separated from the usual spot by a deep crack, the bottom of which he couldn’t see. This suggests that collectors of ornamental fish, who have undoubtedly collected fish at both parts of the reef, haven’t been extracting C. saulosi for a while and that this appears to have helped this species to reestablish itself. I want to thank Larry and his friends for releasing the C. saulosi, now for the fourth time, and also everyone who refrained from buying wildcaughts or asked wholesalers to import some. Everything points to a recovery of this species. 
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Some of the juvenile Chindongo saulosi released last October at Taiwanee Reef 
Photo by Larry Johnson.

Breeding efforts in Malawi

When Pam, Mattia, John, Martin, and I were in Malawi last June (see previous update July 2016) we were disappointed by the hostility of the local fishermen and by the inability of the Malawi government to enforce the no-fishing rules in park waters. Still I found it important to continue breeding a few more species that had been overfished by collectors of ornamental fishes. While David at Stuart Grant Ltd still continues breeding C. saulosi, he declined breeding some other species of which I think they are threatened. While we were on Nankoma Island (Blue Zebra Island Lodge) we were contacted by Pierre le Roux, owner of a fish farm at Chipoka. We visited him and he showed us the farm. 
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Some of the grow-out ponds at Pierre le Roux's fish farm in Chipoka. Photo by Pam Chin.

Pierre’s specialty is breeding the local tilapias—Oreochromis squamipinnis, O. shiranus, and Coptodon rendalli—which was initially also the reason he had contacted Estelle and Matt at the lodge. However, since he also had kept the ornamental Malawi cichlids when he was younger, he later agreed to breed two other species for us: Melanochromis chipokae and Aulonocara baenschi (from Nkhomo Reef). 
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Pierre feeding some juvenile kampango in home-made tanks. Photo by Mattia Matarrese.
 

Pierre is a man of action as within two months of agreement he had collected himself, using hand nets(!), enough breeders of M. chipokae to set up a breeding colony. And early November he had the first fry of these breeders! He just reported that he has 76 large juveniles which should be released this year. He now also obtained, from the local ornamental fish collector in Chipoka, breeding stock of A. baenschi, but since they were small fish he first needs to grow them up. He expects to breed with them later this year. Thank you, Pierre! 
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The first batch of fry of Melanochromis chipokae. Photo by Pierre le Roux.

Breeding efforts in Tanzania

Chris and Louise Horsfall managed to repair the breeding vats—they were lacking waterproofing in the bottom causing to drain water at a fast speed. Now everything is up and running and in two weeks he will have a diver/collector catch the first breeders of Ophthalmotilapia boops and possibly Tropheus moorii
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A male Ophthalmotilapia boops at Nkondwe Island.

With government endorsement Chris also started a tilapia breeding program at the lodge. They are breeding Oreochromis tanganicae, the tilapia found throughout the lake. He’s built some grow-out vats for the fingerlings. The plan is to sell the fish locally so that the demand to catch this species in the lake is reduced. Besides growing these fish to sellable size he also plans to supply the fingerlings to small scale fish farmers who grow them out in cages in the lake—exactly what Pierre le Roux is doing in Lake Malawi.

And yet another project Chris is working on is to provide a kind of baseline report on the numbers of individuals of some of the threatened species in the lake. In talks with the Fisheries Department it became clear that in order to prove overfishing is taking place they need population density numbers before the extraction started. Of course it is too late to produce such, but the sooner we have figures for a certain species at a certain place the better. This is still in the development phase, but we plan to count the populations of O. boops and T. moorii Tanzania Murago, and some geographical variants of these species that are not overfished for the ornamental fish trade. This will give us an idea what the original population density of these two species could have been. Since it is difficult to count fish in transects in rocky habitats, we are planning to use small fixed cameras that take pictures at intervals for a certain time. Since these cameras operate independently the fish won’t hide once the diver has left the area under study. Another bonus to this setup is that the photos can be evaluated and re-evaluated by various people indefinitely and also that they will become an essential part in proving overfishing. The Fund will provide the cameras, perhaps a laptop to evaluate the photos, and we’ll also pay logistics, local lodging, and a small stipend for a Tanzanian student who is performing the study. We plan of having the person count the fish twice a year at 4-5 different sites. 

Fund raising

Last year was a great year for our fundraising as we received almost $9,500! Our total from 2007 till now stands at $79,230! 
I would again like to thank the Babes In The Cichlid Hobby for their faithful and large donation to the Fund. Their auctions and antics at ACA conventions make donating for the preservation of cichlids an entertaining pleasure. Thank you again ladies! 
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Here are a few Babes In The Cichlid Hobby, there are many more! Whitney, Pam, Pam, Caroline, and Sandy. 
Photo by Pam Chin.

I’m also indebted to the Nordiska Ciklidsällskapet (Scandinavian cichlid society) for fundraising among their membership which resulted in $1021 for the Fund! Tack så mycket! Dick Au, a good friend of mine, again made a huge year-end donation to the Fund! Thank you, Dick!
The new year started well with a large donation from Jay Wilson of Northfin USA; thank you, Jay! Remember that a portion of each package of Frozen Cichlid Formula of Omega One supports the Fund! 
Thank you all for your support and concern for our cichlids in the wild. 

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#358887 February Meeting - P.c.s. Auction

Posted by Mattia on 21 January 2017 - 08:35 PM

Alright guys, list is up to date!!

 

A LOT of donations came in this past week, and i really really have to give a BIG  T HANK YOU to:

Kathy (humbug) and Andrew from Labyrinth aquarium... they are sending some fish over from Sydney for FREE just to support our Cichlid preservation fund!!!

Most of the donated cichlids come from them, but also thank you to brumball, thecheif, Terry, bigjohnnofish (yeah you read that right! :P ) and bonneyboi

 

Also, winners of the Photocomp and Aquascaping competition will be announced! :)

 

We have some very cool stuff this time and we hope to raise over 1k and hopefully beat last auction's record of $1021 raised for the fund!

There will also be some cans of Nutrafin cichlid pellets for sale, which $$$ will be fully donated to the fund! Thank you ANDREW for the kind donation!

 

Stay tuned for last updates!




#358532 January 2017 Cichlid Import In Wa - From The East Coast

Posted by Mattia on 11 January 2017 - 08:13 PM

Cool, very interesting to hear that, and very strange as well :o

In Europe they have the fame of being a tough and very aggressive fish, experienced by myself as well when I was working in the cichlid farm ... that's when I god bitten :(

the guys in France (35 meridien) say that together with D. Kiwinge they are one of the malawi Cichlids that shouldn't be kept in aquarium because of their nasty behavior ... but I'm sure that in the right tank you can have some fun with them :)


#358336 Canister Sucking Air

Posted by Mattia on 06 January 2017 - 08:38 PM

Where is it leaking from?
Might be time for new o-rings ;)


#358334 February Meeting - P.c.s. Auction

Posted by Mattia on 06 January 2017 - 07:51 PM

Hi everyone,

Time to send me some lots! :)

Just talked to a friend (who prefers to stay anonymous) who had decided to donate a young colony of 10 x Tropheus brichardi Canary cheek 3-4cm! It could almost be the 3rd fish of the month ! That's a pretty rare specie of tropheus, come ready to bid hard on these as it will also help the preservation of cichlids in Africa ;)

 

Stay tuned for the updated list!