51 replies to this topic

[Hood]

Awesome! So great to hear. Keep up the good work guys, and anyone who hasn't donated to this great cause yet, should.

[mac]

Dear Fellow Cichlid Preservation Supporters,

 

The PCS has launched its next fundraising initiative in support of the Stuart Grant Cichlid Preservation Fund.

 

 

We expect that most individuals would enjoy a chocolate, so we have teamed up with Cadbury's to sell chocolates under the Cadbury's Fundraiser campaign banner. As members have recognised, all funds raised, no matter how large or small, will go a long way in preserving our favourite cichlid species in Africa, whether Lake Tanganyika or Lake Malawi.

 

 

We have been well supported by some of our LFS sponsors who have agreed to sell chocolates on our behalf in their stores. You can now enjoy a chocolate while purchasing your next stash at either:

 

 

The chocolates on sale are:

 

    @ $2.50 ea

 

    @ $2.00 ea

 

We will also have these for sale at each PCS meeting from the kitchen, so please support. Should members want to buy a whole box, $60 will get you enough chocolates to see you through Christmas. Please PM me if you are interested.

 

In the new year, we will be asking if members would like to sell chocolates on behalf of PCS. Committee members have already started with each member taking a box to their place of work. I dropped mine off at work on Friday and half the box is already gone. We do apologise in advance to anyone who gains weight, but it is for a good cause.

 

Thank you for your continued support.

[Mattia]

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. 
 

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. 
 
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). 
 
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! 
 
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. 
 
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! 
 
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. 

Ad 

[Mattia]

Just a quick update

 

Thanks to everyone who bid hard on those donated lots last night, we broke the RECORD!!

 

We raised a total of $2115 in one night!!

That is amazing for little Perth with an 80 people auction!

Great effort guys, our goal of raising $10000 by June if very close!!

 

We are standing at $9025.89 in less than 17 months!!

[Mattia]

Hey guys, just a quick update on our CICHLID fundraising!
 
The PCS is still raising $$$ to save and preserve our beloved fish since we started in September 2015, and we thought that it would be nice to share with everyone where the money raised is coming from and in what amounts... so here we go:
 
Auction Donations:
$4,464 - Thanks to all who donate any bits and pieces to the fund, sometimes even a old airpump goes for an extra $5 just because it's for charity!
 
20% Raffle tickets: $520
20% Kitchen takings: $477.50 
Any $1 that PCS takes from a raffle ticket or kitchen item sold, we donate $0.20c to the SGCF!
"Best month" for raffle donations was of $100, and for kitchen $76 donated in one night!
 
"Fish of the Month":
$1,422 - This initiative only started in September 2016, and we've been smashing it!! Thanks to all of you who donated cichlids to this part of the fundraising, it helps not only the SGCF, but also helps getting some rare species around in the hobby in Perth - so far, the Fish of the month that raised more $ was 2x colonies of 10x Tropheus sp. Black "Bulu Point" that raised $550!
 
Cadbury Fundraiser Chocolate boxes: $390 - still 2 boxes to collect
 
Plus $1756 raised before I started keeping good track of everything
 
Total of $9302,50 updated of today 11/04/2017
 
We still have 3 months to reach our goal of $10,000 until June 2017, let's keep up the good work guys!!!
 
 
Mattia

[Mattia]

Guess what??

 

WE MADE IT!!

 

The Perth Cichlid Society Inc. is proud to announce that we have hit our yearly goal, and raised $5000 in one year!!

That means, since we have started to collect donations for the fund in September 2015, so in less than 2 years, we have raised:

 

$10 000 !!!!
 

It's a HUGE sum, if you think that we have less than 200 club members and only a small population in the state.

We can say that we are one of the clubs WORLD WIDE that has raised so more donations in such a small period of time!

 

Let's keep it up everyone, I have heard that a Tropheus Murago Tanzania said that we're AMAZING

[malawiman85]

Babes in the cichlidy hobby... B.i.t.c.h's... That's funny.

[Mattia]

Hey everyone, 

a new update on the fund from Ad Konings!

 

-----------------------------

 

Dear Friends,

 

A very short update on the progress we have made protecting cichlids in lakes Malawi and Tanganyika. The recent release of the second species at risk in Lake Malawi is the highlight of this update. 

Melanochromis chipokae

Within one year after we had met Pierre le Roux at his fish farm in Chipoka he managed to catch the breeders for M. chipokae, breed them, grow the offspring in record time, and last month, on May 26th, Pierre and his son Jean released the first 68 offspring back at Chidunga Rocks! Watch the video, shot by Jean, in which Pierre releases the fish near the bottom of the shallow reef: 
 
First release of Melanochromis chipokae at Chidunga Rocks

https://www.youtube....h?v=8_9sx6V85gE

 

Pierre has another 90 juveniles to be released and also has had success in breeding Aulonocara baenschi of which he has about 150 juveniles that are about ready to be reintroduced at Nkhomo Reef. Later this year, Mattia Matarrese and colleagues from Perth, Australia, will assist Pierre in releasing both species while Larry Johnson with his group will again visit Taiwanee Reef to maybe release more Chindongo saulosi, but more importantly take a survey of the current population.
 

Lake Tanganyika

Chris and Louise Horsfall are successful in breeding Oreochromis tanganicae, the tilapia found throughout the lake. They found that the fingerlings won’t grow as fast as those of O. niloticus or O. mossambicus, but fast enough to make farming them a viable business, also for Tanzania. For years the Mpende Fisheries farm near Ndole in Zambia has been successful in raising O. tanganicae in large quantities in cages in the lake. The four countries surrounding Lake Tanganyika have all committed to prohibit the introduction of exotic species in fish farms situated around the lake and banned the farming of O. niloticus and other staple species grown throughout the world. 
Later this year, in September, we will collect the breeders for the program aimed at reintroducing some of the species at risk of extinction. We will try to catch some Tropheus duboisi “Maswa”, some Tropheus moorii “Tanzania Murago”, and some breeders of Ophthalmotilapia boops “Blue Neon”. At the same time we will setup the cichlid census program to give us baseline densities of certain species. We will find out what is all involved, how much the program would cost if we hire a Tanzanian student to do it, and what species and localities are feasible. We have acquired five cameras which we will field test in September for this purpose.

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. 

Ad 

[Mattia]

716 C. Saulosi ready to be released!

Wish us luck!

[Delapool]

That’s awesome everyone. Great photo

[dazzabozza]

Top stuff!

 

Mattia looks like he has been enhanced and superimposed into this pic LOL

[Stormfyre]

Top stuff!

 

Mattia looks like he has been enhanced and superimposed into this pic LOL

 

It's all the cichlids he ate while we were there.. half man.. half cichlid.