Who are you?
Dad? Dave.
Who?
Dave.
Let me in.
Stay.
Let me in. dave's not here.
No, no, I'm Dave. Let me in. I got the stuff.
The stuff?
Yeah, you know, the Joe Shimzack stuff, man.
Let me in.
I got the red Cardinals and the.
And the blue gourmet, man.
Let me in. Even got some jelly woods.
Joe'S not here. No, no.
Dave not Joe. Dave. I'm Dave.
Let me in. dave's not here.
D-A-V-E I'm. Dave.
You can you can get your Joe Shrimp shack online using promo code. Aquarium guys at checkout for 15% off. And dave's not here. What about Willie, man? Is wheelie there? Joe shrimp shack.com. Go and find your wheelie. Don't forget about our friends at Ohio Fish Rescue. They have been spending all kinds of time trying to get these massive koi to shacks place. It's a wonderful rescue. It's a wonderful opportunity to show off a rescue and what it's all about, about rescuing fish. Give them some love. Find them on YouTube. Ohio Fish Rescue subscribe. You might find some great content. Also, guys, I'd like to apologize about the podcast. We don't state that we do these weekly, but we really do try to do them weekly. We had some mishaps over the last few weeks. Even my editor was actually in an area of a tornado and was out without power for quite a few days. So forgive us and hopefully this episode makes up for it. Let's kick that podcast. Welcome to the Aquarium Guide podcast with your host, Jim colby and Rob dolson. Hey, guys, welcome to the podcast. So this week we have the famous, legendary Jim cumming from Winnipeg, Manitoba. How are you doing today, buddy?
I'm doing fantastic, Rob. And thank you so much for asking me to come on your podcast tonight again.
We're happy to have you on, man.
Well, I've kind of been sealed off from the world with COVID-19 doing its thing. I'm usually out there mixing it up with aquarium clubs and various groups involving fish. And I've been sort of off that height for a while now. So this is my outlet. Thank you. So, again, thanks for this.
Hey, we're happy to give you an outlet. You haven't been just bored at home, sitting there twiddling your thumbs. I don't want to give a lot of teasers, but you've been building a crazy pond and we have to deep dive into this here in just a little bit. Are you done with it? Well, at least get that out of the way.
Well, I'm on the verge of breaking down and crying. I don't know if you want to pursue this too much. Well, I had a pond liner in that lasted twelve years and I'm sure it could have gone for another ten. But I decided, and my wife was kind of nudging me to do it, to kind of refurbish the pond, to put a new trim on it. And we figured, okay, well, we'll take advantage of that and put a new liner in. And it happens to me, my wife tia, who does my liners. That means she's very talented when it comes to fabrics and curtains and she'll do the wallpaper, but she offers to do my liners. So here she is out there in the spring, cutting away. This is last year and did a perfect job, of course. And then we filled the pond last year and it's going down every day. It's going down only an inch or two and water changes are good anyway, so you just top it up, top it up, top it up. Well, this year it's a disaster. I got the pond going fully a month ago and there was a leak and it was fairly large, so we emptied it, we looked for the leak, couldn't find it. This dam liner makes leaks impossible to find. When the water is in, it leaks like mad. When it is empty, of course, the leak closes up right and you can't find it. I mean, we're both down on our hands and knees walking at the bottom of the pond, poking our fingers everywhere to try to find the hole. Couldn't do it, so I filled it up again and it leaked so fast, I couldn't fill it up fast enough with the hose. It was dropping faster than I was pouring water in. So I figured, this is crazy. There's got to be something there the size of a football at the bottom in the way of a rip. So I emptied it again, couldn't find a thing. Again, my wife and I are out there, hands and knees, couldn't find it. So I filled it again and I noticed something glistening in the bottom. It was just a little black mark, but bit of a white edge to it. So I stuck my hand down there and sure enough, there was a dime sized hole. So I tried all sorts of things. I tried the magical flex tape. It didn't work.
You did try the flex.
I tried flex tape and I tried a double patch of flex tape and it made it better, but it wasn't perfect. So then I emptied it again and I put on this is plan D now. So I put on a combination of silicone with flex seal tape and I did four layers. So here's a patch and then I seal the edge with silicone and then a patch over top of that and on and on. Well, without making a long story too long, I just filled it up tonight and it's been four or 5 hours and it hasn't gone down. I'm at Laser, but I could have had my fish in there a month ago. I mean, this has been a great spring and no, they're still inside at the front glass saying pick me, pick me. So I have to make that decision yet. Who's going outside. Anyway, that's the story of the pond. Right now. It's just a big empty box with water in it.
Next time I'll have to come up there because it's not too far of a drive from where we're at to you. So you got to wait for Canada borders to open from COVID Yeah, at.
Some point it'll open. I hope next spring.
Well, again, I'm your host, Rob Wilson.
I'm Jim colby.
And I'm Adam on the shower.
He's back.
Adam'S back.
Adam'S back. And he doesn't sound like pooh.
Hey, Adam. Got a new computer?
Yeah, we just do our announcement chain, and if Adam talks, we know he's here.
That's good. Good to have you back, buddy.
How'S your new favor?
We just got it today. I got it.
Last one, huh? You didn't lick this one?
No, I got one last week on last Monday. Couldn't get it working. Couldn't get it working. Brought it in. They fixed it. Supposedly tried it again this morning. Still was garbage. And then they just switched it out with a new one.
Perfect.
That's where it was. My first marriage.
That generally works. I'm beginning to find out.
Just knock one in there. I wouldn't say particular news, but we have a review. Someone into the discord and message us directly. So, you know, why not pick on them? Love the podcast. Listen to all of them. Been learning so much. Can't wait for more podcasts. Let Jim know that the Diggery dude is an epic musical instrument. It is also from Canada as well.
Wow.
We need more. I love it.
I have a diggery, dude. Jim and I played at one time. I'm not the greatest at it, but I did it just to irritate people, and they're still whining about it. So I get a lot of memes that they say, did you don't? Which I don't understand.
Of course.
It only sounded like a dead animal when it was on the pod.
Yeah, it sounded like a cow and heat. Kind of what it sounded like. But I did rock the diggery do.
Did they not come from Switzerland originally, where they used to stand out in the meadows and blow these things for no good reason? ricalo? Yeah, I think so. Ricolo. Right. We had stefan tanner speaking here at one of our first meetings of the Dead Fish order, which we have going on up here. And stefan's poster, like we can make a poster for every speaker, was a picture of him blowing a digger redu with ricola all around it. So I can relate to that.
So you got to help me. What is this? Dead fish order.
Oh, okay. Well, about five years ago, there was kind of a rift between the Regular Aquarium Society of Winnipeg and and a group of aquarists that felt that they had done their bit for that club. But the club really wasn't offering them anything and that, in fact, the club wasn't really providing any incentive for people to really get into the hobby and to capture their fancy and so on. So a number of us got together. Chris biggs for one. Spencer jack me. There were about six other people. One was a graphic designer, graphic arts designer. Another one was a veterinarian. We weren't picked for these particular things that we do or were, but we were just very interested hobbyists that wanted to do kind of a special events club. So we decided to do this. And basically it goes like this. Four times a year, we invite speakers in to present to our group. The group isn't restricted to anybody in particular. You could be anybody off the street, and all you do is pay your $25 and you get an afternoon or an evening of a meal, really nice meal, actually, prepared by Spencer jack's girlfriend. She's quite a cook. And then we have the presentation, we have a big auction, and we just have a great social time. It's nothing more than a special events club. And we've tried to get the regular club members to come out from the city club, and they are starting to come over more and more. So we have our main club in town, the asw. And then we've got the dead fish order, which sprung out of the mind of Chris biggs, who is a Star Wars aficionado.
I have to make fun of him because he did not tell us about this and we didn't be a part of it.
He did not tell us. No. I own dead fish. I owned dead fish. I could bring one to show you.
Right, well, we've got a crazy logo. It's two skeletonized fish with dfo in the middle. When Chris was trying to finally get it underway, he wanted to have a Star Wars model for it. He wanted us to be all lords, like the lord of the sith, and we were to wear robes and all this sort of thing.
That's why you don't let him do anything.
Well, us old guys just couldn't do this. It sounded like fun, but we just couldn't go for it.
What you should have done, Jim, is you should put on a robe and you could have been Hugh hefner. You'd have been the coolest guy in a robe.
Well, that's right. It had to be the official Star Wars type robe. heffner with a pipe more. That works for me.
In this twisted society that you guys have. So what do you serve for dinner? Like walleye?
No, it doesn't have to be fish. For example, no one particular session comes to mind. Not Chris. Spencer and some close friends drove down to louisville, Kentucky, to go to rusty wessel's place. And we went there too, to pick up, I don't know if you know of him, philippe canterra, the eco tourist guru from uruguay. And we brought him back to Winnipeg and he put on an incredible uruguayan barbecue for us out at the vets place in a country estate with horses and the whole bit. So this was a beautiful thing. I mean, we were all just beside ourselves with this splayed out lamb and this beef on the barbecue. And we're talking about not just a regular barbecue, we're talking about a bed spring, like a king size bed spring under which was a roaring fire, and then these animals splayed out on it. So it was great.
Jimmy, I bet there was an orange on that one.
Probably not. I'm just wondering. You thought it was beef, but it was only the horses missing from Argentina. I mean, you might be on a horse, I don't know.
You never can tell that's right. It was good. But that's the kind of memorable things we do. Sometimes we go to a restaurant. Like we went to a restaurant and it was so noisy because there was a kid's birthday party in the restaurant at the same time and rusty wessel was presenting. So we all got up and we went back to spencer's. Spencer Jack is a local wholesaler here. He owns Fish and ados. And we went back to his place and we're sitting all over the floor and we're sitting on the edge of little giant tubs with goldfish in them just to hear the presentation. And we ordered in pizza, so we made a night of it. It was a lot of fun. So we're pretty flexible.
That sounds like a lot of fun. I think that is a way to.
Attract another crowd, at least middle aged people with an appetite.
Shut up, Rob.
Yes, sir.
That would be you, right?
You have gyms and stereo tonight and we could just open up a can of whoop ass and just take you out right now.
I love you.
Yeah, exactly.
I'll put orange sandwich.
No, you're on one.
I said you have to tell about the orange sandwich.
My wife and I went out for dinner just before the podcast and I had a pork sandwich and they put orange relish on it and it was like somebody sprinkled tang on top of your pork sandwich. It wasn't very delicious, but I ate it. It came with beer. Look at me. I haven't missed a lot of meals, that's for sure.
Don't put orange on pork, apparently.
There we go. Right, okay, fair enough.
Before we skip this point, because that is so fascinating with the dead fish order, how can I be a part of it? Is there a sign up sheet that I have? A Facebook page website?
What you do? Basically it's advertised on Spencer jack's aficionados site because he has really made more contacts in the fish world, overseas, in Europe and so on, than anybody I know. And so it's usually advertised there. All it is basically a payer, $25. You show up and you have a heck of a good time. That's all it is there's no membership. It's a $25 upfront fee now in American dollars. That's $3. Right. So you guys could afford that? I got the conversion downpad. It's pretty bad. But no, you just show up and buy your tickets ahead of time if you can, and just drop in and have a heck of a good time. Yeah. We have a riot. Sorry? We have a guy who does our auction. His name is Matt flamand, and he knows nothing about fish. His girlfriend knows a lot, but he knows nothing. But he does the auction. And you have never heard a more riotous auction in his life. In your life. He can't say anything knowledgeable about the fish, so all he does is browbeat people into bidding. And he's very good at that. And, I mean, he's an entertainment in his own right. Sorry, I don't mean to monopolize the conversation.
No, this is fascinating.
So what do you guys put up for auction? What are you selling?
Well, oftentimes people that are coming will bring stuff, but oftentimes Spencer will take a hit. Like, he has a pretty big wholesale here, and it's not uncommon for him to bring in 20 or 30 plants, maybe 20 or 30 bags of fish, and he'll take a loss on them. But he's so wanting to support the dead fish order. The whole idea, because part of it was most of it was his idea that he just contributes in that way. And it just makes for great camaraderie. It's not like the usual fish club meeting is a little formal, a little stilted, a little upper knee, maybe. When you have to go to your own club and introduce yourself to your own club members, it's a little discouraging.
Is that your club or is that an alana?
No, I don't mean to dump on them. I mean, Canadians are fairly reserved as it is, right? They're not let your hair down sort of people, I don't think.
I don't know. I didn't teach it. chong, man.
Yeah. And so sometimes it's a little, I don't know, cool, if you will. They just don't show much emotion. Not that I do, but I've been out see a lot of clubs in my last few years and in the States, and boy, I mean, you're hugging everybody, right? This is not a huggy club, but.
It'S a great they just need to understand that it's not poker. All right? They can have a better face than that.
That's right.
Thanks for sharing that with us. That's fantastic.
Well, just to go down the other information before we go too far inside conversations, we do have a question from one of our listeners, one of our discord listeners, neo cardinia message. And he's actually asked us a couple of times before, and I apparently missed it on the podcast, but the question is, how best to eliminate hair algae and black beard algae. Got any recommendations there, Jimmothy?
Me?
Don't say nuke it. I'm just feeling like you're going to.
Say, Nick, you know me. My answer is always to pour a gala bleach in the tank and just walk away.
I thought that's adam's answer when he has blue operating octopus.
That's right.
You Adam. What do you recommend?
Well, I don't know. Try shutting off the lights, pull it all out and pull all the hair algae out.
And then what? Make a salad?
Oh, my word.
I always pull it out and shut the lights off. And then I burn the hair algae because that's always fun.
I feel like that's what he does to his in laws. He just shuts the lights off and they'll go away.
You know what? I'm going to take the hearing pulled up with my ears, because that's a dumb advice, I tell you.
All right, fine. Both of you guys had to get a crack at it. How about Mr. cummings, do you have any recommendations?
I do, except I'm going to take the opposite tack on this. I love brush black brush algae. If I can say it, I love it.
You're from canada.
Well, I am. Can you tell my accent?
Hey, northern Minnesota is nothing different.
Yeah, you guys are all the same. Anyway, black brush algae is the only plant I can really grow. I have fish that are very herbivorous, and I'm proud of my black brush algae. I've got growth like you wouldn't believe. In fact, I have a female hablark acidicus parrot, cyclic, who, after the eggs hatch, she'll blow the regulars right into the black brush algae. And they're safe in there. I mean, they're they're hidden away. And then about three, four days later, they emerge in a cloud. So, you know, I'm not that anti black brush algae, but if you do want to get rid of it, the only way you can get it off the glass is by using a razor blade. Okay? Or a scrubby. But you're going to wear yourself out. And as far as on things, if the driftwood gets it on, or like, I use just plastic plants, I'll take them outside and I'll power wash them. I just knock it out, you know, get it right down to the bare wood again and put the wood back in. Same with the rocks. I mean, I can scrub the rocks, but I just power wash the whole works. I put them on my driveway and blast away. And then they go back.
I know rob's got some answers.
Of course I do. I'm loaded. So just to recap, Jimmy says, bleach it. Adam says, you shut the lot off. I ignore it. And Jim cummings just says, leave it there. It's great for breeding. So I'm going to go on the upfront and say that get some creatures. There are American flagfish mollies that eat it, but nothing near as vivacious as eradicating black beard algae and hair algae as a good old fashioned siamese algae eater. These things are peaceful. They do get large size, but I have them with tiny garbage endlers that Adam gave me.
They're not garbage.
That's an ongoing joke for reality, right?
There you go.
Edward benwood.
And they're peaceful. I'm serious. I got these things probably close to five inches of my biggest female. And docile, actually they're actually scared to come out of the plants. And they have mowed, the worst case of black beard algae I've ever seen, down to absolutely nothing. Now, there's tiny remnants or pieces that will be left between mowing sessions from the semi algae eater, but that is by far the best way I have. Otherwise, you can spot check by using you can get those needle. It's kind of like a needle with a pump on it. You can get a syringe, but there's a special syringe that's a certain long heroin syringe. Heroin? But it's not supposed to go okay. No, it's for mixing, like vape juice. You can go to your vape store. They have big syringes that have long, long needles because they're supposed to fill bottles with them. I buy them from them because they're clean, they're sanitary and ready for your tank. And you can use hydrogen peroxide in them and squirt small amounts of hydrogen peroxide directly on your black beard or hair algae to kill it on the spot. And then it's just playing whack a mole until you can finally control it.
So if you have three lifetimes, you can get this stuff fixed.
All right. I tried using the laser after we did that video, the podcast with Sean kramer, and it did not work. Black apparently absorbs the laser light, but I could kill snails with it. That is confirmed.
Yeah. Thank you for taking care of all my ramshorn snails that I love so much at my house.
You're welcome. But hopefully that answers your question there Neocardenia, but you got any news, jimmy, what's your week been like?
My week has been wonderful. It finally warmed up. The businesses around here in Minnesota are starting to open up, starting to see some people come down to the lake. And I want to say life is getting back to normal, but it's nice to see people out and about. The weather here is just warmed up very beautifully. We're 91 degrees today. Above zero. Jim, you're only, what, 30 degrees up there up in Canada?
Oh, that's delta 34 deg. Yes.
34 is Celtic. That's right.
I don't know what world you live in, but I decided to travel. Right. We had to go pick up a camper with my buddy, and we're having to go through different major cities. And of course, the riots are happening. Small cities. It's like it never happened. Larger cities. There are small demonstrations all the way to Minneapolis. everybody's heard about that on the news. That was my week. I threw a couple of shotguns in the car, but the only thing that we came across was a family of ducklings.
Family?
Yeah.
Did they rush the car?
They did. I'm not going to say what happened, but did you run them over? Duck season.
Well, let's back up here a little bit. A couple of weeks ago, Memorial Weekend, you went and saw who who did you go see?
Ohio Fish Rescue.
So they just put out today again, we're going to be recording this a little bit ahead of time, but they just put out the video and I actually went in their massive predator pond and went fishing. Rich caught me with my pants down, essentially.
I don't want to hear with me.
The fishing pole in the pool. He freaked out, but they got a good video of it. And amazingly, peacock bass will swallow a bobber right off the surface of the water.
And you're doing your fishing for peacock bass in the swimming pool?
Right, in the swimming pool. So I'm hitting Alligator Guard. His platinum alligator guard hitting it, the peacock bass. It was a lot of fun fishing in an Ohio Fish Rescue.
There you go. Isn't their thing is to rescue fish and put them in a better forever home.
Right. vip fishing experience.
Vip fishing. So how much was that? An extra $200.
That is by donation, sir. Big Rich.
So if you check it out, Rob was just on with Josh. It's on YouTube. Coming up here very shortly. Already out. So Rob was down visiting Ohio Fish Rescue, the world's largest fish rescue. And they have some exciting news coming out, too. We won't spoil that for anybody none. But check it out. Check it out.
So, Adam, before I talk with you, it's a couple of podcasts ago. We tried to wish you happy birthday.
It was his birthday.
It was his birthday. So happy belated birthday. Glad you got a PC in your back.
There you go. Thank you.
We should start deep diving into the topic that we came here for. Mr. cummings, I have little to no experience with madagascar species, and you, sir, happened to be the foremost expert that I at least know of as far as media the following cares, documentation. So what got you into the fish hobby and why madagascar species interest you?
Well, those two things that you just mentioned are so separated in time that I have to deal with them individually.
Let's start with how you got into fishkeeping. We asked that to everyone.
I started with fish in 1950 when I was six years old, and I've had fish steadily for about 65 years now, believe it or not. So that's why they I probably I'm the oldest, the the elder statesman in Canada for longevity. But it was just a matter of I love living things. They could be amphibians, reptiles, fish. It's just that fish became a more obvious thing to concentrate on because they were more available. So, yeah, I started out with a platy and a gallon jar with some bird gravel on the bottom. And the platy had two or three young, and I've never looked back. I've been hooked ever since. But my experience with madagascar cichlids began in about 1992. A friend of mine who had very deep pockets and had to have the best and the newest fish and the most expensive fish going purchased some Pertrols menorambo. Now, this is even before they were named a given species status. And I remember going over to his place and looking in his ten foot long tank and saying, wow, those are interesting looking saltwater fish because they do look like tangs quite a bit, the saltwater tanks. And he said, oh, yeah, they're really special. I got them through a special friend and a deal and all this stuff. And I said, well, good luck with them. And then I contacted him about a month later and they had died. And I don't know why, he doesn't know why, but that's the last I saw of them. Then in 1997, I happened to go to an aca convention. It was in Chicago, I believe, and somebody was selling some Perilapium poloni. And I brought six back home and loved the fish. I mean, they were really nice. I couldn't breed them, had trouble breeding them. A fellow friend asked me if he could take them for a while and see what he could do with them. He spawned them. He sold the young to all the pet stores. Probably made enough money to retire, gave me the pair back. I still couldn't spawn the buggers. What the hell?
It's like jimmy's problem with placo.
Yeah, it sounds very familiar.
So anyway, the last of those fish lasted 13 years, and it kept me kind of in touch with it. And about ten or eleven years ago, I had an opportunity to get some madagascan cichlids. Our local wholesaler here had set up a bit of a channel with lafe D'mason from Old World Exotic Fish in homestead, Florida. And laif is the North American presence when it comes to the commercial aspect of them. And so Spencer would order some in, and I'd pick them up, and I thought they were interesting, but after a while, they grow on you, really, because they're so mysterious, they're so different. You have to problem solve. You work your way up the learning curve because there's very little literature out there on them. And if it weren't for a friend who lives in San Antonio that you probably know of, his name's Jose gonzalez. He's the Us guru when it comes to metagascar cyclics between the two of us. We kind of got the act together and produced them in some numbers, and really it became quite a passion with me, and I know it is for him. So I've had them seriously now for about 1011 years, I guess. And every time something happened, it was an event. In my fishkeeping life, I would get excited. I'd be like a giddy kid waiting for them to spawn, and finally they spawn, and I happened to be there with my video camera, and it was a momentary magic moment, if you will. So, no, I've been hooked on them. The more I've been into them, the more I've appreciated the dire straits that they're in in madagascar. They're so endangered that likely in ten years they won't be there at all. So, yeah, it's just something that it grows on you, and the conservation aspect tends to take more and more over, and I want to go to madagascar. I was, in fact, planning to go next September. My friend Jose was going to go this September, but COVID-19, you know, flummox that, so, yeah, it's been it's been a nice go. It's not they're not the only fish I keep. That's my problem. I I still love Central American cichlids, south Americans to die for, and I have the Indian cichlids as well, so I've got four of them on the go with four groups of fish. My fatal flaws, once I have a fish, I can't get rid of it. I just kind of fall in love with the saying, it's got to live out its life in my tanks. So that's my dilemma.
And a good problem it is to.
Have how many tanks are you running right now?
Well, if I could go further than I have, I would. Let me start by saying that when my wife and I moved into this house, we decided where my fish would go. We did. So we put a piece of painters tape on the floor. Now, I have a pretty substantial basement. It's about 2200 square foot basement, but about 800 that is devoted to my fish room. But this piece of tape is still on the floor. It's kind of tattered and so on, but it's still there. And my wife point to it quite frequently and says, oh, the tape is still there. Is that now you have to get very creative and inventive as to how to get more tanks in a confined space. For example, you'll never find a sump under any of my tanks because it's a place where a tank would go. Right. So no sumps in my fish room. You can only stack tanks so high in an eight foot high ceiling. But I've got tanks stacked twos and threes all over the place, so I've had to go vertical. So in answer to your question, sorry, it's usually between 35 and 40 tanks, not a spectacularly large number, but I tried to make more bigger ones and I kind of phase out smaller ones, so I've got ten. Then they go down from there to so on.
Just a little guy.
I have found out that it's hard to sneak in a 180 without the wife known about it, right. A 20 gallon long or something, when she's taking a nap as it goes down the steps like a bob sled.
Today. I don't understand this.
I have to wait until she goes out of town, actually.
There you go.
Try moving the tape. Just adding, like, another that's what I do.
There you go.
Move the tape.
Put on with Crazy glue. Okay. They had to get there for the permanent duration of this house's lifetime. No, I quite like the fact that there's a containment to my hobby because it adds an additional dimension to keeping fish, like how to get more fish in that room. But then it's in conflict with this idea that I can't get rid of a fish. Right. So right now, I've got these incredible fish that I want to breed, and I've got no room for them. I mean, they're in crowded tanks. That's why I want to get my pond going, because that's my release valve. It gives me an opportunity to move maybe 100 fish outside and open up two or three tanks. So then I have a great five months ahead of me playing with the one.
The other thing you can always do is just go up in your closet and lay down a piece of tape and tell her, this is your half the closet. You might have something to negotiate with later on.
Would you like me to introduce you to my wife? She's wonderful. But you don't do tricks like that. No, you don't survive that. No, that would be too bold. No, I'm just kind of kidding around about that, because she does support my hobby. I mean, anybody who cuts my pond liner, you know, is on your side. There you go. But there is a limit to how much room I should take. And I'm not trying to run a business. I'm just a hobbyist. And limitations are good for me because I'm afraid I have what some people call it a glut personality. You don't know when to quit. So if I ever start something, I've got to take it to its endpoint. And with fish, that's difficult because there is no endpoint. Right. You keep going, and you keep going. That's why sometimes the fish I pick are fish that are limited. Like Indian cichlids, for example. There are only three species, so that's a very self limiting thing. And malagai. Cichlids. Same thing. There's only ten available to the hobby, so I know the ten. That's it. Now, South America and Central is a different story, and that's my problem. Yeah. Anyway, it's fun.
It's all fun as far as the madagascar varieties, right? Because when you Google madagascar cichlid, immediately it just pops up as the plenty cichlid. What other cyclists are there, and how are they different than the traditional South American other cichlids?
They're cooler. Well, okay, first of all, there are basically three groups of cichlids there that are in the hobby. The paratalapia that you mentioned, they're probably more like oscars. I guess if you wanted to liken them to something that might be in the South American clade, because they're like big puppy dogs, they have lots of personality, they interact with one another a lot with their owner. They're just a rough and tumble type fish and beautiful to speak of, too. So that's a whole group of fish. I mean, there are several Paul and I around, but there are different populations and there's a lot of uncertainty as to what their true identity is, to tell you the truth. Then there's some that might be the most like centrals, the Tychochromes. They are mostly like the thoracic from Central America. They're all substrate pickers. They have the long sloping snouts with the underslung mouth. And again, they're a very active personal fish. And if people are thinking, whoa, these are going to be hard to breed, that's not the case. You get a pear. And even though they might reach 1011 inches, they'll be breeding at two or three. So they're very neat to keep and they're good starter fish. And then there's the whole group of the Paretroplus, which are, I guess, the high end maligaze fish, high end, because number one, they're going to cost a lot more to get. And number two, they do have some tricky aspects to them. I mean, people can breed them, but raise the young might be a different story. There are lots of little tricks and things that you have to do to pull them through and then just when you think you've got it beat, you'll come down and find the tank half dead, something's happened. So I've had my ups and downs with them. I think I've got it pretty much a template for success now, but it's always work. You have to work at it. But they're gorgeous. I mean, what can you say? Any fish that has the body shape and color and habits and so on, they're just so different, so, so different.
So you're going to have to help me again because normally I try to Google along with you when you pull up some of these species that I haven't heard of because again, pulling up the plenty cichlid, and that has been called like black diamond cichlid or starry night cichlid. And that's really the only one I know of, and that is the stunning one that if someone's looking for a cyclist that I know of, they're going to aim to just because that beautiful black sheen with the almost pearlescent white spots, absolutely the first one. What is the spelling on that so.
I can follow along the paratilapia poloni. Well, I say poloni, some say polini, europeans say polini, but Paratilapia, that's the Starry Night. Then there's also paratalapia species ANDAPA which is a larger fish with much bigger spangles on it and it has a lot of personality. It's a big, rough, tough son of a gun, but I love that fish. Now, as far as getting them. In the States, you'll find a fish called bleaker Eye advertised here and there. In fact, most people know it as bleaker Eye. I've tried to set the story straight if I knew the story entirely myself, but blaker Eye apparently has never been in the hobby, or if it was, it was many years ago and lost to the hobby, but it's thought to be now extinct in madagascar. Yet a lot of the suppliers that do provide them for shops and so on list them as Bleak or Eye, but I believe they're a polari. And then the whole dilemma of large spot and small spot, well, every population has different spots. There are at least seven or eight different species populations now that they've found maybe even more. They exist and they aren't sure whether they're all Polandi or not. They used to call them all Poland. I in fact, Paul loisel was a proponent of that idea, that they were all simply different geographical variations of Polandi, but now they're not sure. So now they've just designated them according to their location, where they're caught that's up in the air.
My guess would be that eventually they'll probably separate them all out because, like, with your applatus, I do a lot of madagascar stuff, and with your appraisal, we had, like, Satanic's and then we had large form satanic. We had ebinawe, and then we had the little ebinawe, and then they had the black mouth and the white mouth and then the black tongue, and they've always ended up being like every single one of them is a different species. So that would be my guess with the pollen eye or the bleak eye.
Also, because I think you're right.
They're all reptiles. Correct?
Adam yeah, those are all geckos.
Those are all reptiles.
All reptiles, yeah.
Well, it sounds like a very parallel course in terms of the way they're being treated. And that is the latest set of thoughts on it, that they are probably they've been isolated enough that there's been enough species divergency in them that they may very well be considered different species. Now, many of them, I mean, they're doing DNA on them and testing and so on to try to find this out, but it's very slow moving. I mean, the last report that I really heard on any of this was from 2011. So, I mean, we're talking nine years ago and nothing definitive has happened since then. It takes money and it takes commitment. Mainly the money thing and conservation efforts and science needs to be involved and they're just not able to in these times.
Now, for the listeners listing, these aren't sicklers that you're going to go and find at your Petcos or your pet smarts for the majority of them.
No, you won't, because if any actually.
I used to carry them.
You weren't petco, but yeah, the bleaker Eyes, I think, used to carry I.
Used to carry them and I used to have katrina.
That's a fish that we would dearly love to see come back into the hobby.
They are available every now and then. I think I just catria.
Yeah. Wait, I'm having a heart seizure here.
I've seen them on a list.
Wow.
So they come in occasionally, and I think they come from czechoslovakia.
Oh, okay. That's interesting. Wow. If I could somehow get more information on that. We've been dying to get them over here in North America. They were here fairly common about ten years ago, eleven years ago. I mean, but, you know, they're not the most engaging fish in the world, I guess you could say, yet, you know, we serious hobbyists look well past that, you know, if it doesn't have bling, hey, that's a fish I want. I I want the gray one, you know, but wow, that's surprising to hear that. That would be incredible if it actually were available somewhere. Now, I've sent my fish to the eastern bloc countries before I've sent them to slovakia and to Poland. So I'm wondering I wonder you see, I know a lot of people over there. Maybe I should start asking a few questions. That might be interesting to do.
Yeah, they're my they were my favorite fish. The only problem is, is that when I had them and I had them in a 75 gallon, I got IC and I don't know how to treat I was going to ask you, how do you treat IC with madagascar fish? Because.
If you don't catch it within the first few hours, you'll have dead fish. I've never had a madagascar cichlid survive IC unless I treated it within hours of when I first noticed the IC. They have no tolerance to it, no natural tolerance. In fact, a friend of mine who lives in saskatoon had a beautiful tank of madagascar cichlids, a 750 gallon tank. He had menorambo, maculatis, demii, kinai in this tank. He didn't pay attention to it for a few days. He lost them all, everything. So he's coming into town to pick up a few from me. He wants to take a few back and try to get them going again. But, yeah, he lost everything through IC. And I've had two or three episodes where I've lost them with ik, and I'm fearful, like, I want to put them in my pond again. I had them in my pond last year, and they did very well. But there's always that chance that if you get a nick outbreak and in a pond, of course you can't monitor them that closely and, you know, if they come down with it, I'll end up losing them all for sure. Sorry.
No, go ahead, finish, please. I'm sorry.
No, I was just going to say if I can keep the water good and clean and keep the water temperature up, which I do, because I have an immersion heater that I use in my pond, then I think I'll be okay on that, and I didn't have any trouble last year. But ICA is the one thing that malagasy Cichlids have no resistance to whatsoever. There's the old approach, while you can use salt and heat or you can use the medication, the problem with the salt and heat is, well, the heat anyway. It takes a good ten days for IC to run through its life cycle, and by then they'll be dead. So you need to have something like icloud or icx. I mean, there are these various medications that you can get, and they would be the ones that I would use because they give immediate defects. Okay.
And that actually worked because I thought that you couldn't use that because of the copper. It would kill them. That's what somebody had said at one time.
Not so much, actually. They're not particularly susceptible to copper problems. I haven't found that, but I've used it a couple of times.
So I.
Don'T know, that would be something I'd have to look into further. But it's good to hear that you know that. And now I'm a bit wary, but all I know is that you've got to act fast, and if you don't act fast, you're going to lose them.
I lost my contract, a nice tank of contract. I had them for like three and a half years, and then I dead overnight and I'm just like, what? And I've just been pumped.
Do you guys use uv filters at all? That's how I treat IC.
That's what I'm doing.
That's what I'm going to start doing.
Is put uv filters on when I get back into my fish, I'm going to try and find madagascar stuff again and I'm going to put uv filters on it. That's the only thing I was thinking of, is to combat it.
You've explained. I think that's a good idea, actually, when I think about my pond, I do have uv out there, and that would be probably a good reason why, if anything happened, nothing would happen. So yeah, that's a good idea.
Then maybe they're handler. guppies, you're right, they're not healthy diets, lots of them.
Okay, so how do these fish differ from the other cichlids? Clearly we're learning that they can sand copper, so there's some myths about some added gas car cichlids out there.
How do they differ? Well, firstly, they do best in groups very often. South American fish do best in groups as well. For example, I find heroes get along very well. When you have maybe six to eight in a tank. That's the severims, of course, but they do best in groups. I would say six to ten would be ideal. And they're very slow growing, so you have time to move them up to larger tanks over year. It takes several years for a minorambo, for example, to get to a good ten inches to twelve inches. That might take five, six years. They continually grow but very slowly. But they will start breeding quite small. I mean, at four inches or so. They will after a year and a half. I think the main thing is that you have to be very mindful of the fact that they I'm trying to put my finger on it. They don't have any special dietary requirements, particularly, although the Pertropus are built for eating shellfish, snails, shrimp, that type of thing. And so I feed them, for example, the large krill. They seem to enjoy the resistance that the shell gives them when they eat them, and I think that gives them a good replacement for what they feed on in nature.
Jamie loves cheetos. He likes the resistance in his mouth.
Yeah, it's got just the right feel to them. Well, they seem to go for it and does them well, anyway. If I give them a few good feedings of that, they'll usually breed, you know that.
So does he.
Well, I could try cheetos. I never thought that maybe they take cheeto.
It's very fattening for fish. I don't recommend it.
Cheeto?
No.
Maybe for goldfish. They can handle that just roughage.
When you're out calling in favors and getting in the special Cichlids, what can people expect for prices, retail?
Well, again, Canadian pricing is based upon local pricing. I mean, if you buy a fish here and it's $65, you're going to buy a fish in the Us. And it'll be $65. Except for Us, it's a different dollar. Right. But if you get maybe a four inch paretroplus up here, it would be in the my suggestion is, if you can get them small, get them small. I mean, there is always a risk that you might have more trouble raising them up from a tiny size, but I find that it's really good to get six to ten small ones, maybe two inches, and then keep them in the same tank throughout their lifetime, and they'll gradually grow. And after a year or so, like I say, they'll start looking like adult fish, and they might even want to spawn for you. And they get a very strong pecking order. It's not so much a pecking order, but it's almost like they become friends, believe it or not, because I've had I've had the opportunity.
Sick leaves don't become friends.
All right?
I don't care what you're trying to tell me. Friends, none of them are nice to each other.
They're all breeding well. The aggression with these is not that great. If you put them in a crowd, there's no aggression. You're not going to see a splits in or a missing scale or anything like that, even though they've got the teeth where if they wanted to, they could descale their tank mates. But you're not going to see that if you have six or ten. They just don't care. They just go about their business, you know. Now, you put two in a tank, and then you might have an issue. Put four in a tank and they're two pair. Yeah, they'll be at one another. But put six or eight in a tank, lot of structure, maybe a few other species, and then you're going to have a nice, calm, basically calm setting.
It reminds me a little bit of Tiger barbs. With Tiger barbs, I've always had luck with it. If I've had 810. Twelve of them versus having three or four because they're always constantly banging on each other, for lack of a better word and stuff. And I've had better luck with a larger group. That makes total sense to me when you're saying that.
Yeah, well, basically, there's just too much for them to concentrate on. They don't have the greatest attention span as it is. There's been a bit of a bum rap attributed to them over the years that they are so inept at parenting that they'll never ever be successful parents in a tank. That is, they'll never get the young up swimming with the parents and raising them beyond that. But a few of us have done some interesting studies on that, and we found that if you keep them in a setting where there isn't any vibration in the water, like, if you don't put a powerhead in there but just maybe use Air for your filters and so on. Or external filters, power filters. That's okay, because it's a vibration in the water that drives them crazy and it literally drives them to distraction. They have a very intricate connection between the swim bladder and the bones in the head. And if there's any vibration in the water, it translates immediately to vibrations that go to the head and the sensory pores, and it really disturbs them. So if you put them in a nice quiet setting, put them on a solid floor so that when you walk by, they don't have the floor bouncing and creating waves in the tank, like sound waves, they'll raise their young. And it's incredible to see a cloud of young around these things.
Jimmy with this notepad going, no, I can't have them. Too much rock music in the house.
Actually, this is making a lot of sense.
God, I wish I still had my fish.
Okay. Yeah. It's been interesting to see this in effect because I've heard so many reports about them not being able to take their young past the hatching stage. In fact, usually they eat the eggs before they even hatch. And there's another thing, they take five to seven days to hatch. So if you leave them in with the parents, then there's always a fungus issue that you might have to worry about. If the water conditions are really good, you'll probably get a good hatch and a good number of fry coming out of it. But, you know, if the water isn't 100%, you're going to maybe get 10% hatching. Just the rest are overtaken by fungus. That was the first thing a surprise for me. I I pulled a spawn way, way back when I first bred them. And I'm waiting for them to hatch. And I'm waiting and waiting and waiting. And the 7th day they finally hatched and I couldn't believe it. I mean, I figured this is a long haul. So there's another thing about parenting. I mean, a South American, Central American, in 48 to 72 hours, they have wrigglers on the bottom. These poor things have to wait a week before the young come out and then they don't hatch all at once. They hatch over the course of about a day, a day and a half. And the parents are going crazy looking for them as they fall off the rock and it's kind of pulling for them. You can do it. Come on, you can do it.
Is there a reason why they take.
So long to hatch? I don't know, it's just the way they have developed physiologically. I mean, to me it would seem like it could be an advantage in one way in that they are, I don't know, able to hatch with some good size to them. The young are generally quite large. If they hatch very quickly, I don't know. That's a good question. It's something I'd have to really look into. It's just the way it is.
When you look at mammals, elephants have a huge gestation period, I would imagine. Like you said, with a larger size, it's going to take a longer for them to develop. But they're off on the right foot and they're already halfway growing compared to say, a baby angel fish or a guppy.
Yeah, like I said, they do have some size to them. The eggs are slightly larger than the average Central or South American fish, that's for sure. Although I do have a central fish called thomasic Latuba and I've never seen a fish with eggs as large as that, other than most brooders from Africa, which I don't like. Sorry. People shouldn't start turning us off because I don't like the Rip Lake cyclists. But anyway, that's the way it is. Yeah, but these eggs are huge of our viewers. They do hatch in three to four days and they're absolutely like a quarter inch when they hatch. It's amazing how big they are. But they have small spawns, right? So again, it's like you got a big fry, big fish, but it's fairly mobile fairly quickly. But there aren't that many of them. And the parents can run her to kind of look after them quite well in that small numbers. But some of my big malligazy cichlids are able to put down 600 to 1000 eggs. I mean, I have a 14 inch paratrophis dambabay and she's fully capable of putting 1000 eggs down. So they certainly have large enough numbers if the fish are big enough.
So to go over a couple of questions on discord, because we got people listening in again, if you guys want to join these podcasts live, we do not broadcast them on any platform. You got to join our discord to come join these fun sessions. Again, we do these Monday nights around seven Central. Sometimes they're different, but that's mostly every night. You can find our discord by going to aquariumgyspodcast.com. On the bottom of the website you'll find our discord link. But again, I'm trying to follow some of these comments that they have for questions, and one of them came up that is there any small varieties of madagascar cichlids such as you see, like German rams?
Well, you won't get anything quite that small, but there is a beautiful little one. I'll use it as an example. It's called peritroplus Kenarye. It gets about five inches long, total length. It's feisty as heck, really an attractive little on the go fish. Fairly easy to breed. If you're a person that loves a definite pattern to a fish. This is not the fish for you because it has the most unusual non pattern you've ever seen. It's simply gray, black, white, yellow, splotches all over, just like a modeled fabric. In fact, leifa Mason coined the name Calico damba, calico being a fabric of some sort. But it looks like fabric, it really does. It just has this random speckling all over it. And usually when they mature, they get an orange nose, which is really quite an attractive little feature. But you can keep a colony of eight to ten of those in, say, a 70 to 100 gallon tank quite nicely. And they get along very well, always on the go, and they would be a really good starter fish to work with.
How do you spell out that first word, poetroplus?
Paretroplus. P-A-R-E-T-R-O-P-L-U-S paretroplus. And Keeneri is kiener.
And of course, it has to be one of these species that immediately pop up on the iuc and Red list.
Oh, yeah, they're all there. Everything in madagascar is on the iuc and red list. If they aren't on the red list, then there is no data on them. Very few of them are secure, very few. And the thing is, they just did a recent reassessment of them and every one of them, every one of them to a species has gone down one notch in terms of vulnerability or how deeply endangered it is. Like something that was vulnerable is now endangered. Something that's endangered is now critically endangered. It's, it's that bad. And that's not only the cichlids, of course, that's we're talking. The killy fish, all of the packy panchaks and then the rainbow fishes, the bedosha and the rayocles are all endangered.
So are you seeing these madagascar species breed differently than other cichlids? Are some of them mouth brooders? How does that go? Because, again, I'm coming from a foreign world that I don't have these, except for Adam, and I've never had, except for the nickname Starry. Night cichlid.
Right.
But other than that, I have no experience with this. So how do they breed?
Well, they're all substrate spawners. There are no moat brooders in madagascar at all. They'll simply lay their eggs in a patch, on a rock, on a piece of driftwood. Nothing in particular attracts them. The only thing is, if you have a pair in the same tank, they will spawn consistently on the same object all the time. They will never change. I've had pairs spawn 1015 times on that same rock, on the same side of the same rock. I mean, they are truly creatures of habit. They seem to recognize that there is an optimum spot for them to put their eggs down where maybe they're better protected there or something. They seem to sense it anyway. But they'll put down their eggs just as normal thick lids do. One thing is they've got huge oval positors. The males and females genital papia are huge, and there's no difference between them. Like in South America, Central America, the genital papia of the male is pointed and kind of angled back, right? And the female is more like a little elephant trunk kind of bent forward. Well, all malegaze cichlids have the same genital parts, and there's no way you can sex them by venting them. You just have to see which one the eggs are coming out of and which one the eggs are not coming out of, and that's how you'll tell them apart. There's no real sexual differences in any of the paretroplus, other than maybe for fish of the same age. Maybe the males might be a bit larger. That's about it.
Sorry. Do they form lifelong parabons?
Well, I have a pair of, as I say, a pair of Dambabay that have been bonded now for six years. Now. They haven't got much choice because of the only two in the tank, along with a few others of another species. But as long as nothing disrupts the parabond, yeah, they'll hang in there. One thing I have noticed is that if the eggs disappear, if they're either eaten or I pull most of them, I'll always try to leave some young behind because it tends to keep the parabond intact. But once the fryer all gone, it's almost like both parents kind of nod their heads and say, well, that one's over. Let's now just wait till the next time. Like with Central American cichlids, the male, he gets mad and he beats the female to crap, and that's the end of it. You've lost one of your two of the pair, but I don't see that with these. I see a very different sort of thing. They both seem to come to a mutual endpoint where they both are of the same mind. I hate to talk in those terms because I was like, I'm thinking like a fish, which I intend to do more than my wife would like to. Wait, what's that?
Movie from the it's got, I think, don knots in it. This is a guy that fish and Mr. limpet. There you go, Mr. Limpette. Too much.
Well, my wife will catch me in front of the tank every once in a while, opening my mouth and pretending I've got gills. So I'm kind of embarrassed, and she sees me doing that, but that's his mood.
Are you naked? I'm just wondering.
Hold on.
Right.
I have to have a little talk with my fish now and then. I mean, I have to encourage them to do the right thing. And I look on myself as a choreographer in a way. I'm saying that tongue and cheek in a way. But I can usually tell when the fish are ready to breed. And if I want them to breed in a place where I can get a good video, I'll set it up that way, and they usually fall for it. That's really amazing. I can figure out where they want to best breed, and that's why I get so many good videos. I mean, I'm not blowing my horn about the videos, but maybe I'm very lucky, but they always seem to accommodate me with where they do their thing.
Okay, so on the podcast, we've always trolled about jimmy's breeding playlist because he always makes this joke, that all. Is he's a big angel breeder? Right? So he always makes joke that when a storm comes will be 09:00 p.m., and every single one of his tanks will start spawning at the same time at 09:00. Well, we have a theory that it's because that's when he plays marvin gayes at 09:00. So now that we know that a lot of the gas car sickwoods are affected by vibration and sound, what playlist do you use?
Oh, we got a boys.
He just fell off his chair.
We got him, boys.
The sounds of silence. There you go. Got Simon and garfunkel.
You're going for disturb there? Never mind.
Yeah, do not disturb. You know what? I just let nature take its course. I know pressure change is an issue. I know water changes can spur it on. I also know that madagascan cichlids are seasonal breeders. They tend to breed between, say, January, February through till June and July, and then usually take a bit of a hiatus after that. Although I have some pears that just throw caution to the wind, and they'll breed all year, and I'll have fish out in my own care. And they'll breed out there, too? No, but they tend to be seasonal breeders, and it's more in line with the changing of the seasons there. It's just genetically in them to carry that with them.
Do you have any certain foods that trigger them to spawn? I had great luck with frozen bloodworms.
Well, bloodworms can be good, but these are usually big fish, and you got to give a mass of bloodworms to them. But I find the krill the frozen krill works for me. Again, they seem to really appreciate that crunchy exoskeleton that the grill have and they take them with a lot of vigor. And if I want to get them sort of in the breeding frame of mind, I'll give them a day or two of the krill and then water changed and usually something happens a little Simon and garfunkel.
There you go.
We got some more questions from Discord and while we're on this one to answer in a shorter format, because I know this could be a long format question. What is the biggest triumph and pitfall that you've had with breeding these fish?
The biggest triumph was breeding one particular Maligaze cichlid pyretroplus neurosati. It's called lamina. The common name, or at least the Maligaze fishermen call it lamina. It gets to be about six inches. It's a beautiful orange color, but it's got an attitude like there's no tomorrow. And that's a fish that if you put two in a tank, chances are they'll either pair or they'll kill. That's where you need to put like 20 in a tank. That's the best way of doing it. When I bred them for the first time, I tell you, I was like a kid on Christmas morning. I was just sitting there with my video camera, giggling away, thinking, I am really watching something that I never thought I would see. It was really a treat to breed those. And then I guess some of my losses may have been that same very fish. When I think of the low points when I'm speaking and I go away for two or three days and sometimes I'm away for quite a long time. Like last spring, I was in Sweden and Denmark and England and I was away for 23 days. And I always lose fish when I'm away. My son is really good at looking after them and even my wife pitches in, but they just don't have that experience to spot something that may be going wrong. So I've lost fish that way and I've come back and found a whole tank of maybe beautiful fry that I was hoping to raise entirely dead or just having a power failure. That happened about a month and a half ago. We had a power outage for about 8 hours and I lost my air supply and I ended up losing a complete spawn of atomic latuba. So these are sort of hits in the gut, right? Kind of a punch, you take it. But if I backed off from these setbacks, I would have been out of this hobby 50 years ago. But you have to keep pushing forward and you have to keep trying to do your best. You don't want to do anything stupid or silly. I'm in the process right now of putting in a backup generator. So if I do have a power outage, it will immediately kick in and supply my air. If the air supply is on, I won't lose any fish, I know that. So, yeah, breeding a particular fish can be very exciting. That to me, just in terms of highlights generally in the hobby is going away on these speaking engagements and meeting some of the nicest people all over the world. It's like the hobby is alive and well in certain circles, and to see that first hand is really high for me.
So a couple more questions on discord, just to go through these. How frequently does hybridization happen with madagascar species? Is it isolated? I'm just trying to go through other examples here. Is the madagascar environment variable enough that you'll see a consistent speciation? There you go. Thank you.
Okay, well, in madagascar there are no populations of mixes of these species. Usually you go to a given river system or a given lake and you'll only find one species in that lake. So that's not going to happen in nature at all because, for example, damba Bay comes from Lake Kinconi, which is on the west side of madagascar. And damien, for example, comes from the northeast. So, you know, they're separated by 800 miles or 1000 miles in a completely different river system. So you're not going to get that opportunity for them to hybridize. Now, in an aquarium, it could be a different story. My philosophy is keep them in mixed community tanks. I keep three, four, five species in the same tank and on no occasion ever has there been a crossbreed. Like maculattis and menorambo, for example, look very much alike, body shape, even coloration to a degree. But I've never seen a maculatus and a minorambo attempt to spawn. As long as you've got a male and a female of a particular species, they just seem to hang together. Now, in my pond last year, it was a different story. I ended up having a mix of fish and a few of them were singles. And I did have a male of one species breed with a female of another. I didn't keep the young, of course, but it can happen in artificial setting, but not in nature. You're not going to see it.
No liggers in the madagascar community.
It doesn't work that way in madagascar reptiles either. With a lot of the satanic geckos. I used to have a huge collection of geckos, and then I got crypto Spiritium and I had to put all of them out. I had a huge collection of Europlatus.
Wow.
Yeah, I'm still sick about it. I lost them and I lost period, I'm a sobe, I lost all my nice geckos. There's different kinds of the leaf tail geckos, like the satanic, and in the Ebinawe groups, you can put them together. They won't breed like the white mouth satanic, which were the bigger ones or the red mouthed ones, and then the black mouthed ones. There's a little bit of a size difference. They'll stay together in the same tank, but they won't breed at all.
No, that's it. No. They seem to always select their own type if given an opportunity. If not, well, desperation kicks in and they will spawn with another species, to be sure. But I've never seen it other than, like I say, in my pond. And that was because I had only a single of one and a single of another, and they just got together. That was it.
Now, you've talked about your pond quite a bit. How large is your pond?
These are some big sicknesses, not huge. It's 1200 gallons. It's 12ft long by 5ft wide by 30 inches deep. And, you know, sometimes I'll put a full size adult fish out, but then, of course, I have to keep my numbers down maybe more than no more than maybe 1520 larger fish. But I love using my pond as a grow out tank, in a sense. So I've got tons of Central American young cichlids right now that I just want to get outside and enjoying, you know, the pond and the sunshine and so on. So I'll probably be able to put 100 of them out there with me. Any problem at all?
And will you harvest those in the fall or will you let them be out there for two months and then replace them with something else?
No, they'll be out there for the duration. Because I put so much structure in my pond that to get any fish out, I'd have to empty the pond. I'd have to have pots in there and driftwood. And it's quite a chore to get the fish out of a pond unless you emptied it, basically. So, no, I keep them in there. Usually the pond, I can keep up and running until the end of September, maybe even into October. Although last year I got caught in a snowstorm. I was ready to bring them in. And we got a very heavy snowfall that day. And I wish I had gotten it on tape because it was a real gong show trying to get the fish out of that pond. And I had a couple of rubber made containers, or little giant containers, 100 gallon ones that I transferred them to before they go into the house. And I had this glass cover on one of them and I lost my footing, slipped and fell backwards into the little giant tub and broke the glass. It was unbelievable. It was not a very pleasant fall. emptying my pond. Usually it's not like that. I pick a better day, but yeah, I keep them out there for a good four and a half months. I actually have a presentation that I give. It's called keeping tropical fish in northern ponds and all the strategies for success. Because in twelve years I've had a lot of experience trying to find out how to make this work. And it seems to. What's funny is I get calls from people in Texas and Florida saying do you think I can keep these fish out there? I said, Listen, I'm north of the 49th parallel and I keep them up there for five months, so you can do it that way. You are it's kind of humorous. Yeah.
These two knuckleheads that I work with here, they always want to do like, aeropima or arrowanas or something crazy like that.
And then my cats, we shoot them whole. Oh, another question from the discord. These fish are not easy to get a hold of. Sometimes they're impossible to get a hold of. The normal trade methods, what is the most you spent on the cyclist?
The most I've spent? Oh, gosh, I'm cheap. I am really cheap.
I like how he looks over his shoulder to see if his wife's stadium.
We got a second mortgage.
Okay, let me put it this way. My local wholesaler is glad to take my fish, and I build up quite a credit with him. So when the fish come in and I want those fish, I simply use my credit to get them so I really don't go out and have to lay out cash for them. I'm able to get these fish mainly through him. I think probably the most expensive I've ever gotten is about $80, I would say. $80.
That's not bad.
No, it isn't. I can live with that. But that would be an adult fish. And if I had my choices, I would get smaller fish all the time. I like growing them up from a small size.
See, Adam is the same way. He loves to grow up the fish from small up to adults, and I'm just too impatient. I just buy adults and go for it.
Well, with Maligazis, again, it's that group aspect of them. Growing them up together is what creates compatibility and low aggression, because I've had instances where I've had an established tank and I've thrown a fish in that didn't belong in there, and right away it becomes the source of attraction for every other fish in there. They look at this and strangers arrived on the scene, and suddenly they're after it. It's amazing how use they get to one another, but I like to see them develop. I like to see all the stages of what they go through to get to adulthood. And I love that moment when they actually start to mature and interact in a breeding sense. So that transitional point is really important in my hobby because I'm an observer of fishery. I like to look at the social aspects of them.
When you're breeding these oh, sorry.
No.
Go ahead, Adam.
When you're breeding these, I'm assuming that they were started with smaller populations of like, the polini and all of them. Have you noticed any genetic drift or genetic defects in the babies yet, or are they still breeding pretty true?
Well, they're breeding very true, actually, I had a couple of batches that did have a lot of deformities to them. But I discovered that it was the medication I was using for the antifungicide. I had put too much methylene blue in it, resulted in some bent spines and some maybe 10%, 15%. And also another group of fish. I think I overdid it with the methylene blue, and I ended up with short gilplates on a lot of them. But as far as genetic drift, it's not really happening much because most of the fish in the hobby are coming from like a st lafe to mason's old World exotics in homestead, Florida. It's been discovered, or it's generally true, that if you have a population of 200 to 300 fish in a pond, that there won't be any genetic drift. Like there is some number like that, two to three to 400, that if you can keep a population of that size going, that everything is going to be okay. There won't be any degradation at all in the genetic makeup of the fish. So in terms of this, I've got probably four or five generations of certain fish that I've had over the course of the ten years, and I haven't noticed any differences in them at all. Not really good to know.
So since we have an audience, a platform for people to listen to, this even discord tonight is pretty full. If there's a species that you're looking for that you've had problems finding, you explained before how you expect a couple of these species to no longer be in the hobby, and maybe we had hints of finding it. What are some species that you think might have some hope? If someone's listing it, they might have it or know of a place where they could find it. What are those species that you're looking for?
So you're talking about maldogaze cyclists in particular?
Any of the madagascar species?
Well, if you had another 2 hours, I could tell you a story about me, about trying to get a particular fish called Paratroplus damie. It's such a long story, I could write ten pages on it. But that fish, yeah, I have a possibility of getting it now, but I've worked for five years to try to get that fish. I went to Europe twice to get it, in fact, and failed twice. So it's one of those fish that it's kind of my nemesis. It's a fish that I dearly wanted to have, but never, ever seemed to be able to connect with. No, actually, the way my hobby has gone lately, I guess the fact that I'm more out there and people know of me, and I seem to have opened up a few more pathways for obtaining some fish. The one fish that's most frustrating for me to try to get, though, is the madagascan Pacqui panchaks, the killy fish. I used to keep Killys in some serious way. And years ago, I kept killies for 2020 years. Nothing but. And paki Panchaks were always something that we're very difficult to get a hold of. And there are some people that do have them in North America, but it's very difficult to get them unless you're very bold and forceful and you say, Listen, I want those fish from you. I'm not that kind of guy, not that pushy. But there are certain fish that I've tried to get in a sort of a controlled way and not had much success doing it. Since I'm administrator of the madagascar endangered fishes, I feel I need to expand my horizons beyond the cichlids alone. There are plenty of fish beyond cichlids in madagascar. It's just that none of them are available in the hobby much. So that's a real downside.
Me to go over there, explore some lakes with some people and equipment and see if we can get these.
The problem is that they don't allow any fish out of madagascar anymore. There's a complete embargo on shipping any fish out of madagascar. They're all keeping the mayor to have them gradually die.
They won't take any reptiles out either.
That's why they need to write them a letter telling them of your program. You're trying to save the species, you're.
Only bringing yourself dear madagascar.
Right.
Well, some years ago, I got to visit the Toronto Zoo. I was giving a presentation to an aquarium club in Toronto Zoo, and that happened to be the place where the curator of fishes there was involved in an expedition to madagascar in 2016 to try to find a fish that they thought had gone extinct in the hobby. And they successfully brought them back to the Toronto Zoo and have bred them and they've in fact, sent some to Europe. Several aquariums in Europe now have them as part of the breeding program. And I've been trying my best to try to pry them off the Toronto Zoo. I've done everything. In fact, the person that asked me to be administrator on the madagascar endangered fishes is that fellow, the fellow that actually found these fish. And he can't even get them out of that zoo into a hobbyist hands. I just think I would love those fish. I'm not looking at it from the profit motive or I'll get those fish and I'll breed them and send them out and make a fortune. Nothing like that at all. It's just that the hobbyists tend to do so much to try to keep things rolling with the fish, and in many cases they are the last resort. I mean, I'd love to think that a public aquarium is the place where fish should be, but I've been to several public aquarium where I'm afraid, which they keep them, or if they have a breeding program, it's very weak. And in terms of long term sustainment, I don't know if that's the best option, but I understand where they're coming from. They're the ones putting out the money, and the grants have to be so on. So yeah, that's an issue. I wish I could get a hold of some fish, a little ease. I don't have any particular species that I've got to have at this point in my life. I'm content with the fish I have. Right now. I'm working on a Central American cichlet called thomasic Sfrasti, which I got from a friend in England, and I got two breeding pair, and I'm hoping that they bought for me this summer. So that's keeping my fish satisfied, my fish needs.
Well, see, that's why we got to transition you. You can't get it as a hobbyist, right? You are an expert that travels around, but you need to become a gallery. You just got to open something to Winnipeg, have the gallery of madagascar species, and boom, then they'll start sending you stuff.
Oh, you think that's how it works?
See, they go, well, how's better than just stealing them. That was my idea.
They may not have great security systems.
The zoos are looking for money at this point because with the COVID most of them are closed and probably needing some money. So there you go.
That's not the truth. Yeah, you're right on that.
Maybe you can call the janitor and say, hey, for a case of beer and some tacos, would you let me in for a couple of hours?
That doesn't work.
You don't know that.
Oh, no, I know that because I.
Went to the tacos.
You might want to do a follow up podcast with me when I'm behind bars, and it'll be a novel follow up to this conversation, but just making the books.
The Jeffrey epstein thing fell through for us, though, right?
People are listening. That inspired by the conversation. Never knew the impact of the species that are just getting crushed in madagascar. What can some of the listeners do, even as beginner hobbyists to help preserve the species, help this cause?
I wish there were some obvious things that could be done. I think from a hobbyist level, I think joining a group like madagascar Endangered Fishes or Cares or the Cichlids of madagascar Facebook sites would be a good thing to do, because getting a bit of a knowledge base, a bit of a sense of what's going on with them and what's available and people's experiences with them would be the thing to do. I don't think, even though you've kept fish for a long time, it's not the kind of thing you would necessarily jump into. I think people would like to see a little bit about what they're getting into. Not that it's like, whoa, this is going to be tough. It's not that way at all. It's just going to realign your thinking on some things. But I would say that a few of the Facebook groups are very valuable supporting your local aquarium society and hopefully trying to carry a little bit of the message about madagascar cichlids into that hobby setting. Again, if I could give you ten definite things to do to raise their profile or to allow people to become more knowledgeable of them. that'd be great, but I'm afraid I can't we're at that.
Let's go some of the obvious, right? Number one, people have pocketbooks, right? They'll donate to causes. Is there a cause they can donate to? For pet stores, again, to start supplying madagascar species, trying to keep the species spread, you said join Facebook groups like your madagascar Endangered Species Facebook Group for education, sharing knowledge, and again, spreading the word of the hobby. And what species would be the species of someone to order it, and where would they order a madagascar species right now of any kind to help save the species?
Like I say, I don't want to promote any businesses, but like I say, the only real reliable sources in the States are Life to Mason. Although I just heard the other day that he's really low on stock, but he only sells to retailers. So if someone wanted them from him, they'd have to go to their local retailer and have that retailer do an order with Old World Exotics, and then he could provide it. Another person who does provide maligaze cichlids, fairly high profile, is Dave schumacher from dave's Rare Fish in San Antonio, Texas. I know him well, and he's sent me fish before. And then there's the fellow who is the hobbyist in San Antonio, Jose gonzalez. Now, he sells his fish through dave's Rare Fish, but he also sells on aquabid. So if you look on Aquabid from time to time, you'll see a list of maybe three, four, or five species that are there. He goes under the name of cycla. soman C-I-C-L-A-S-M-O-M-A-N he can be found and he sells fish too. The thing is, a lot of us that make any money on these things try to support funds for their conservation. And there are several that are associated with the hobby. One of them is from the American Cichlit Association. There's a couple of funds there that will gladly take donations. But once again, I can't give you that information off the top of my head right here. But there are only about four sources in the States where you can get these fish, but you have to order them, and stores will order them. But again, there's a limit. They're not going to place an order for three fish, and they'll come in at a huge price, unfortunately. So you'd have to be ordered in some numbers, I guess so, yeah, that would be it. That would be Leifta Mason and Dave schumacher and Jose gonzalez on Aquavid. And then I'm up in Canada here, so that's a different ball game because I can't get my fish into the States. That's the problem. I have no physical way of getting them here other than driving them across the border. And now the border is closed of. Course, wait for it to open and.
Have you over to our place.
To.
Come and visit you guys.
Well, Jim, I can't thank you enough for coming on, but before we leave, I tried to save this one for the end. We had more questions because, again, you're also a longtime killy expert, is that correct?
I did keep killie's for a long time, yeah. I had a good 15 year run at it. Pretty saturated with it. Yeah, for sure.
So the question that I was prompted by discord to ask is, after that 15 years of having killies, what's your favorite killy?
Oh, my God.
This is what you do every time you ask a guest their favorite. You just make them have an aneurysm.
Well, when you've been in the hobby as long as I have, and I used to keep, I think at one point I had 160 different species and they all had their own challenges, they all had their own degree of beauty. I mean, I could go on and on. I'm thinking back to the ones that I might have had more success with, but they emit maybe the more common ones. You can't beat the fungi panchaxedi, the blue collaris. I mean, to me, that's achille for all people. I mean, it's got size, it's got beauty, it's a great fish. So I would say blue galaris would be probably one of those foremost in my mind.
Again, in the bottom notes of the podcast, you can find the Facebook group for the madagascar endangered species and a bunch of other information for jim's work. Please go to that, join up, share the information with your fellow aquarius. If they're even not a stick with guy, it's still information that's valuable in the hobby. I continually follow Jim also on social media. It's fun watching his adventures with his own species and ponds. And again, contact your local aquarium club after this COVID is done to see if you can get him to come. He's very willing to speak at events.
Yeah, just one more thing. Follow us before I go. One of the things I do is I do a lot of videoing of my fish for people to observe and to see what I do with them. So I have a YouTube channel. I don't use the YouTube channel to make any money. I just put my fish out there. So I've got a YouTube channel that's got about 700 and something videos on it right now. And it ranges all the way from Central to South American to Malagaisy to Indian. And you'll see the complete history of my fishkeeping career over the last seven or eight years on there for sure. And it's under Jim cummings.
There's your intro music right there that I pulled out.
You actually found it, did you? Jim cumming is the voice actor of winnie the pooh. You know that he's the more famous Jim cumming.
I think he has an S at the end of his name.
So that's how I got violent. He does. That's the way to do it. Just leave the s off. Right?
So, again, the link for his YouTube will be in the descriptions again, and he has very, very beautiful cichlids. So certainly check those out. And again, thanks for having on. Anything else you got for us, Jim?
Thank you for the opportunity of talking about these fish that I am very enamored with and it's so impressive to see what you guys do. I keep spreading the word as you're doing and thank you for having me. That's for sure.
Thanks, guys, for listening to podcast. Please go to your favorite place where podcasts are found, whether it be spotify, itunes, stitcher, wherever they can be found, like subscribe. And make sure you get push notifications directly to your phone so you don't miss great content like this.
I never knew that a Minnesota accent could be so sexy until I heard adam's voice.
Go frank yourself.
Don't you know that's my boy? Don't you know.