Last column I expounded on the benefits from knowing or not knowing the scientific name of your fish. Depending on your level of commitment to the hobby of fish keeping, you may or may not be reading all you can about your fish.
Another aspect of the hobby is the annual conventions and workshops put on by the various national and local fish organizations. This past July the American Cichlid Association put on their annual gathering in New Orleans. In addition, the convention was billed as the International Cichlid Conference.

Many of our TBAS buddies attended. Not only because New Orleans is close (a mere ten hours by car and only a few minutes by plane) but because it has the distinction of having the Aquarium of the Americas. This is the drawing card that may have gotten some of our members to head north for some cichlid fact injections.

The year before, the ACA held their convention in San Jose, California and I am sorry to say only the bravest of us went to the golden state for that one. I myself have been attending national conventions and workshops since 1972. I have gained immensely from the knowledge expounded there by the speakers and programs. In addition to that I have rubbed shoulders with the famous and the infamous of the fish world. These friendships have lasted to this day. Sometimes we only see each other once a year. But never the less we have a common bond.

If you have never attended a convention or workshop, you should seriously consider it. If you want to be a better aquarist, I can not think of a better way towards that goal than to get out of town. The ACA convention is next year in Chicago, and I know many of our TBAS members are planning on going. Of course if you’re not into cichlids, going to the ACA convention may seem silly, even to me. According to surveys made of the club in the past, one half of all TBAS members keep cichlids in one form or another. I even know one member who keeps them in the freezer.

Speaking of keeping fish in the freezer, wait a minute that’s another story.

There are conventions for Killi freaks put on by the American Killifish Association. Hopefully the new Catfish organization spearheaded by our own John Peterson and the famous Lee Finley will be putting on a convention very soon. Many local clubs put on weekend workshops which cover a wide spectrum of topics related to the aquarium hobby. These workshops are advertised in the aquarium magazines, on the internet, and by the FAAS organization.

I have already mentioned the ACA in Chicago, and I know that I will be one of the attendees. Another conference that I have on my calendar and I hope to be able to make the trek to is the Fifth Indo-Pacific Fish Conference. This conference in the past has drawn experts from all over the world for the study of both freshwater and marine Indo-Pacific fishes.

Most aquarists that keep salt water fish keep Indo Pacific fishes and although with the exception of the one cichlid and two danios that I keep, I too keep only salt water fish. I don’t have anything but local saltwater fish for now as it is just not in my budget to spend the high prices demanded for these exotic fish. Whoops, did I stray? The Indo Pacific conference is being held in Noumea from November 3rd till the 8th of 1997. That is more than enough time to get all my affairs in order. In addition to the conference I will use this trip to visit the islands of the South Pacific and do some diving and sailing.
If you are considering attending a conference outside of the county, I recommend that you get your passport as soon as possible and make your hotel and airline reservations when you have definitely made up your mind that you are going. If you want some more information about this conference then let me know at a meeting and I will get you the info.

Speaking of passports, do you have one? Living in Florida the way we do gives us the unique opportunity to get to our South and Central American neighboring countries for what I would consider a paltry sum of money. Airline fares are really reasonable and once there, hotel, meals and transportation are even more reasonable.

Now that ecotourism is hitting a new high, more and more opportunities are arising everyday to go south and see the places where our fish come from. Jeff Caldwell visited us last year and showed us slides from his adventure in South America. Don Conkle showed us his adventures in Central America. Wayne Leibel shares many of his adventures both in slide shows and in magazine articles. All three of these interesting characters put together trips for aquarists to collect and to see the habitats that the fish come from.

The other day I got a call from a friend of mine in Costa Rica. I have been bugging him for almost a year to invite me down to visit him and do some collecting. He finally got it all together and said get here. I called some of my fish buddies to see if they could come with me. To my surprise and disappointment, most of them did not have a passport. This lack of a passport kept them from accompanying me and my friend on what turned out to be a great adventure.

I’m not going to cover that adventure here as that’s a whole slide show and an article to itself. I hope I have made a point here though. If you don’t have a passport, then get one. The whole four day adventure in Costa Rica cost me around $700, and it was great fun.

Speaking of adventures, in the early days of this century and the late part of the 19th century many amateur adventurers and explorers headed to the tropical jungles to collect everything that they could find in the name of science. These collectors brought back their collections to the great museums of the time, they were catalogued and in many cases named as new species since they had never before been seen by the scientific community. Perhaps one of the greatest honors that can be bestowed on a person is to have a creature named after oneself.

These collectors names now live only with the fish they have collected. Who were some of these collectors. Well Capt. J.M. Dow has more then a few fish named after him. Notably the Cichlasoma dovii, and the Anableps dowi. David Starr Jordan has the Florida Flag Fish, Jordanella floridae named after him.

The fish collection at the Smithsonian was started in December 1856 when S.F. Baird brought in a sucker, Catostomus hudsonius that he had collected at Lake George, New York in 1850. You probably have seen Mr. Baird’s name on a few fish.

Imagine the excitement of finding a fish that has never been described before and having the taxonomist name it after you. All of us collectors dream of that happening some day. Alas, it has not happened for me yet.

Oh, yea. The frozen fish story.

Many moons ago, more than I care to tell you, when I spent most of my money on fish, I went through the normal kill every fish that you spend a lot of money on syndrome. I just couldn’t bear to throw these fish away and so they became inhabitants of my freezer, albeit dead inhabitants.

I remember my one foot arowana being placed into a plastic bag and stuffed into the rear spot where he would be out of the way of the ice cream. Not long, depending on your definition, after, my red devil, who was one of my show fish, decided that she no longer wanted to be alive and having had her for a couple of years, she too got bagged and joined the arowana. Soon many fishes were starting to take the place of the ice cream and soon there was no room for any food what so ever.
This was about the period of time that I started going to ice cream parlors rather than have ice cream at home. At the last ACA convention, somehow the discussion got to frozen fish, and I found out that I was not the only one who felt this way about their prized fish. If you haven’t guessed which way this discussion is going, then here it is. And it happened to us all universally. The freezer quit working, the fish all thawed, the smell was overwhelming and the fish all got thrown out in one big smelly lump.

Then we all realized at the same time, the end of the ice age, that keeping fish in the freezer was dumb. Really dumb!
From now on plant them under your house plants and then you can still benefit from them as your plants grow to new heights. That’s all for now.

See Ya soon.