Until now. Even though it seemed impossible, the Greater Chicago Cichlid Association-hosted 1997 ACA convention was even better. Over 600 people attended, making this the largest attended ACA Convention in history. There were 670+ (that's no typo) tanks of magnificent cichlids, including rare Madagascar cichlids like Ptycochromoides sp., 6 juveniles of which sold in a silent auction for over $300, a drop-dead gorgeous giant Amphilophus robertsoni that took best of division, new world cichlids, and the striking orange Lamprologus leleupi that won the hotly contested best of show. Which unfortunately did not belong to Charlie Goss.

The speaker lineup included such luminaries as Dr. Paul Loiselle, giving a fine talk on Lake Victorian cichlids and their plight. Heiko Bleher on "Land of the Apistos", setting what must be an ACA record with 9 trays of slides and very few Apisto shots. Juan Miguel Artigas Azas showing all the would-be fish photographers what in situ shots of cichlids are supposed to look like, with his two talks about Cichlids of the Usumacinta basin area of Mexico and Guatemala and cichlids of Belize. Talks on cichlid health, photographing fish, and a real gem of a talk on calculating the blower size for your fishroom with lots of good data on how much air pressure is consumed by a typical fish tank apparatus, like an airstone or a box filter. Talks were dual tracked due to the busy schedule, so I'm sure I missed some of them.

Friday's day trip to the Shedd aquarium was a wonderful treat. The Shedd appears to be going into the twenty-first century with a new philosophy, one the Florida Aquarium ought to have. Go after the tourist dollars, instead of the impressive array of cichlids and other freshwater fish they had in earlier times, there were the groups of marine fish you see at most state of the art public aquaria and "cute marine mammals" like dolphins, otters and Beluga whales. On the bright side the Shedd donated a bunch of fish to the Jordan fund for auction that are part of their breeding program for endangered cichlids, so at least behind the exhibit walls the aquarium is doing the right things for cichlids, just not showing enough of them for us true cichlid buffs. Don't get me wrong there were plenty of cichlids to satisfy the general public, but come on this was the national cichlid convention. Seems like the Steinhart in San Francisco is one of the remaining bastion for extensive displays of cichlids in public aquaria in the United States. We visited there during the 1995 ACA Convention.

The large vendor room was handled very nicely by Ray "Kingfish" Lucas, who had his impressive array of manufacturer's goods which he donated and auctioned off on Sunday. Mike Schadle with lots of fine literature (yours truly was tickled to find the new Aqualog killifish of the old world book available already from Mike, but that's the last I'm going to talk about killies in this article). The ACA table where I bought numerous books including "Confessions of a Tropical Fish Hobbyist" by Ross Socolof, easily the most entertaining book about fish keeping I have ever read.

Saturday night's banquet left the attendees full and content, Charlie Grimes did his usual hilarious job poking fun at fish keepers and fish keeping, and we were treated to a rousing introduction to next years ACA convention site, St. Louis, Missouri, by Pat Tosie. Apparently, the Budweiser folks, according to Pat, use those nice Clydesdale horses to help haul beer in the old days. I wonder what the horse does now, I guess he has something to do with pulling the beer wagons in parades. After the banquet, during the happy hour (there was one every night but Sunday and I consumed way too much alcohol, but the camaraderie made it worthwhile) we were treated to a first at an ACA convention, a comedy slave auction run by B.I.T.C.H, "Babes In The Cichlid Hobby," apparently a ladies auxiliary of the ACA started by such notables as Ginny Eckstein, Carolyn Estes and Pam Chin among others. I understand Lee Finley sold for over $100 and that over $800 was raised for the Jordan Foundation. A slave auction is the last thing any of us expected to see at an ACA and was a hilarious treat to those of us consuming mass quantities of alcohol.

Sunday's auction was the only bump in the otherwise smooth superhighway of the convention run by that talented group in Chicago. Due to a scheduling mix-up, an outdoor tent was set up to sell off the fish, but the much-needed air conditioning units were only partially functional, and it wasn't till well into the day that the rest of the air conditioning arrived. This didn't stop the ACA stalwarts from bidding like bidding should be at an ACA convention, after all, it's only money. In that fine Chicago tradition the auction went until around 2:30 a.m., and yours truly took many a beer down to the auctionees.

So, once again, another ACA convention has passed and a grand time was had by one and all. I don't know if I'll ever attend an equal to Chicago '97, but it certainly has raised the standard for how well an ACA convention should be run.