by ALEXANDER A. PRIEST ast month, I mentioned that we were waiting for the results of the publication awards from the North East Council (NEC) of Aquarium Societies for 1998. Well, I'm pleased to announce that Modern Aquarium did very well. For the fourth year in a row, Modern Aquarium was voted "Best Publication" by the NEC. For the second year in a row, Modern Aquarium articles took first place in both the NEC "Open" and "Advanced" class. Why do you think we have done so well? Obviously, it starts with people willing to write articles. As the slogan goes (with apologies to the New York State Lottery): "You gotta be in it to win it!" But it is my belief that Modern Aquarium gives our members a better chance at winning awards for their articles than almost any other society publication. For one thing, every article is reviewed and read several times by several people. Can mistakes sneak in? Of course they can — and do! But, I wish I had a dollar for the number of times I've seen references in other society publications to "Liverbears" (and if that doesn't look wrong to you — look again), or seen the word it's when it (without the apostrophe and "s") should have been used, or seen misplaced or missing commas, split infinitives, and other errors of grammar and punctuation. I have seen interesting and informative articles in other society publications that were formatted so poorly on the page that I had to force myself to keep reading them. Greater City members who submit articles to Modern Aquarium can be assured that their articles will be proofread by an Editorial Staff that is nothing short of fanatic about quality and presentation. Our staff meetings frequently involve pulling out reference books. Those
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books include not only aquarium atlases and other books related to the hobby, but also books on writing style (such as The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, The Chicago Manual of Style, and the U.S. Government Printing Office's A Manual of Style), and on grammar and proper word use (I use Fowler's Modern English Usage), and, of course, several dictionaries. I doubt many other amateur hobby publications spend as much time and effort as we do to "get it right." Of course, we will not change the content or meaning of your article, but we will do our best to make sure that it looks professional. Really, how much faith would you have in an article about Guppy breeding, if the word "Guppy" was repeatedly spelled "Gupy?" What about an article on "Anglefish?" How do you think you would feel about such articles if you were judging them? Writing articles for Modern Aquarium is a partnership between author and Editorial Staff. We need authors and would like to see more people start writing. (And, by the way, special congratulations to Jeff George on winning a first place NEC award in his first year of writing for Modern Aquarium.) Don't think that you won't be able to write as well as the articles you see published here. Every article we get is given the same careful attention. Nothing gets printed until it meets our high standards. Then there is our unique "look," thanks to our Photo Editor, Jason Kerner, who provides us with the color photo for each issue, and the professional printing and binding (and decidedly different cartoons) of Bernie Harrigan. When an article is free of obvious grammar and spelling errors, formatted to make it more readable, and showcased in a magazine with a professional and distinctive look, it is more likely to get a second look from a judge. No, this does not mean our articles are "shoo-ins" by any means. It does mean that they are more likely to be given serious consideration. So, give us your article, and be pleasantly surprised by the end result! This month (May) is your last chance to complete the Modern Aquarium Reader Survey. If you have not done so yet, ask for a Survey at the table where Modern Aquarium is distributed. Remember, you have a chance at a raffle prize just for completing the survey. More important, you have a chance to let us know what you think of Modern Aquarium and how we can improve it. And, yes, even the best publication in the North East for four years running can be improved.
May 1999
Modern Aquarium - Greater City A.S. (NY)
President's Message by Vincent Sileo don't know about you, but sometimes I just get bored with my aquariums. Especially when I haven't kept up with maintenance and the tanks aren't looking very good. Sometimes I wonder why I bother keeping them at all. But then I feel bad about the poor conditions which I've forced my fish to live under, and I break it all down and start over. Now the tank looks fantastic, the fish are happy, and so am I. The same thing happens with the Society. After working all day, many tunes the last thing I want to do is go to a meeting, but every time I do I feel revitalized and excited about the hobby all over again. Just when you think you know all there is to know about a topic, a speaker will come along and show you a whole new side of it. Or a new hobbyist will rekindle your interest in the hobby by asking some questions that you either have the answer to or spark your interest enough to research to find the answer. When you keep on doing the same thing, over and over again, you're bound to become
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bored. That's one of the reasons why we've put on the Fish Frolic, and will be putting on a Fish Show next Spring. We want to do something different and open up a new side of the hobby for our members in order to make the aquarium hobby experience at Greater City more full and well rounded. But the Society can only do so much. We can try to provide a greater variety of areas to explore, but you won't really benefit from it and enjoy those new areas unless you try your hand at them. We can put on a Show but you won't really benefit from it if you don't work to make it happen or participate in the competition. We can bring in a speaker to teach us about a fish we haven't kept before, but it won't be as exciting as keeping that fish yourself. You could read an article about participating in another club's (society's) function, but you won't experience that excitement unless you do it yourself. So when things start to get boring, don't quit on the hobby, try a new facet of the hobby and feel the rush you first felt when you started. And when you think you know it all, perhaps you'll be good enough to share that knowledge with the rest of us and discover the best part of the hobby for yourself — the satisfaction of helping your fellow hobbyists.
Send all mail, including exchange publications, for Modern Aquarium, or for the Greater City Aquarium Society to: Alexander A. Priest % Greater City A.S. 1558 McDonald Street Bronx, NY 10461-2208 To contact us via e-mail, send your message or inquiries to GreaterCity@compuserve.com Or, leave us a message on our website at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/greatercity If you are sending an electronic file (including any article), please save the file as either: (1) .RTF (Rich Text Format); or (2) ASCII (or text); or (3) WordPerfect 5.1 for MS-DOS. Please use an "8 plus 3" file name (that is, no more than 8 letters or numbers, no spaces, and with an (optional) file extension of no more than three letters or numbers). You can send 3.5" (Amiga, Macintosh, MS-DOS/Windows) or 5.25" (CBM, MS-DOS) size disks, either high or low density. If you mail a disk, keep a copy of the file on your hard drive or on another floppy (the Post Office has been known to "cancel" programs on a disk), and include a printed copy, along with information indicating what program you used to create the file.
Modern Aquarium - Greater City A.S. (NY)
May 1999
The GCAS Proudly Welcomes Our Scheduled Speaker for May:
TOM NEAL Speaking on:
"The Secrets of Success with Livebearers!" by CLAUDIA DICKINSON t the age of six, a curious young boy would sit and watch over his father's bait bucket while his father was out spinning his reel for larger fish. The shiners in the bucket fascinated Tom as he spent his hours guarding them, and soon he had a fishbowl set up shimmering with the metallic little fish. Tom began doing his own fishing and caught many species of native fish, which he always returned to their wild habitat. The fishbowl became inhabited by a goldfish and shortly a ten gallon tank would follow. As Tom's interest in fish grew, so did his tanks and, four to five tanks would always be a part of his growing up years. These tanks were filled with Barbs, Danios and Bettas. Tom wasn't able to afford filters for his tanks at this time so he came to rely on frequent water changes, which he is a strong advocate of to this day for any successful breeding program. His fish were quite prolific, and at the age of ten it became clear that Tom had a natural gift of oneness with his fish as his Angels began to breed. Tom met his lovely wife Peggy and they were wed twelve years ago. Although Peggy had no fishy inclinations at the time of their meeting, she now shares Tom's great enthusiasm and is more than adept at caring for their many charges. After their marriage the Neals started out with one twenty gallon long and, as Peggy puts it, "the tanks multiplied faster than mice"! Even though the cellar houses over one hundred tanks, Peggy says, "the only room in the rest of the house without a tank is the bathroom!" Tom's interests and talents with aquarium fish are extremely varied and he has worked successfully with and bred a wide variety of species ~ in fact there is not much one can name that Tom has not bred. His many illuminating articles in TFH have treated us to a whole new horizon on the care and breeding of these fish.
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Tom truly has the Midas touch and his one big secret he says ~ Water Changes! Of course when you hear him tell of his feeding techniques with many live foods and just putting practical fishkeeping to work ~ Tom sets a wonderful example to be looked up to and listened to with a keen ear. Tom began serious saltwater fishkeeping five years ago and is now successfully breeding and raising Seahorses! His major interest is in larger New World Cichlids, but there is not a fish that you cannot talk to Tom about in order to better understand and enhance your own knowledge. A longtime active supporter of conservation, Tom has devoted much time to ensure that endangered species have some chance at continuing to live as they have in the wild. He is also dedicated to the aquarium hobby in general. He has served on the Board of the American Cichlid Association (ACA), is Vice Chairman of the American Livebearers Association, and is known for his writings and lectures throughout the country. Tom carries a complete line of nutritious fish foods in the form of flakes, pellets, as well as frozen and live foods. He will be bringing these foods to the meeting so that we may have the opportunity to purchase them at his very reasonable prices. Your fish's health, growth, and colors will benefit tremendously upon being treated to these delicacies! With his vast experience and knowledge, Tom will surely return to New Hampshire leaving us enlightened on the "The Secrets of Success with Livebearers"!
May 1999
Modern Aquarium - Greater City A.S. (NY)
Is There An "Annual" Tetra? by JOSEPH FERDENZI ctually, this story sort of reminds me of the famous (or is it infamous?) television sitcom "The Brady Bunch." You know — the one about the man named Brady who had three sons, who married the woman who had three daughters, and that's how they all became "The Brady Bunch." Well, this is the story of an annual killifish that laid eggs which got mixed up with an egg laid by a tetra, that all got put in storage for four months, and were hatched out together. Sound confusing? It was to me, but here is the unique story of what happened (and this is not an April Fool's story). It starts with a magnificent pair of South American annual killifish, Cynolebias magnificus. I had acquired them though my local killifish club, and they are indeed beautiful (as their scientific name implies). As with many annual killifish, they were bred over a glass container that contained about three inches of clean peat moss. Every two weeks or so, I would drain the peat off into a fine-mesh net and squeeze it dry. The collected peat would then be placed in an individual air-tight container and labeled (name of species and date of collection). One such batch of peat was collected on March 16th. Approximately 8!4 months later, I placed this batch of peat into a small tank to see if any killies would hatch. The result was a big fat zero. No eggs hatched. But, I have been trained by my killie buddy, Dan Katz (who specializes in breeding Cynolebias), not to throw peat away, especially when dealing with new, poorly understood species such as C. magnificus. So, I syphoned the peat back into a fine-mesh net, and re-dried the peat. On April 28, over 13 months later, I decided to once again attempt to hatch out some killies from the march 16th batch of peat. This time, I had considerably more success. Approximately 24 fry emerged after a 24 hour emersion in water. Unfortunately, 16 of them were "belly sliders" (i.e., fry with malfunctioning swim bladders, and which would, therefore, ultimately have a short lifespan). However, I was optimistic that, from the remainder, I would get at least a pair and thereby be able to continue my stock. As time passed, I noticed that one killie fry seemed to be a little larger than the others. I assumed this was a male. Eventually, my suspicion was confirmed when I detected some
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Modem Aquarium - Greater City A.S. (NY)
blue and red color on the body (female magnificus are a plain beige in color). As this one fry began to really outstrip the others in size, I decided to remove him to a separate 2% gallon tank. This would lessen the chance that he would attack his smaller siblings and/or out-compete them for food. Things went fine after that, when, one day several weeks later, I decided to take a closer look at the male magnificus. To my slowly awakened realization, a close inspection of the fish revealed that is was most definitely not a male (or female) magnificus. In fact, it wasn't even a killifish. Its deep body, colored metallic blue, and its forked red tail, preceded by an adipose fin, gave me the clues to its identity: it was a tetra that I had in my fish room, Hyphessobrycon ecuadoriensis. This tetra comes from South America, but that (and it being a fish) is about all that it has in common with C. magnificus. How, I wondered, did the tetra get mixed in with the killifish? The magnificus and the ecuadoriensis had never been kept in the same aquarium, either together or separately. The tank in which the peat was emersed was a small portable aquarium that had never held the tetras. Only one plausible explanation presented itself: it had to be the fine-mesh net. I surmised that the fine-mesh net into which I had drained the peat after the first unsuccessful attempt to hatch the killies had also been used in the tetra tank (probably to scoop detritus from the bottom) just before. Although my practice would have been to rinse the net of the accumulated detritus, it's altogether possible that a tetra egg remained in the fold of the net that was then absorbed by the peat moss. (If anyone can suggest a different explanation for the contamination of the peat or the appearance of the tetra in the portable aquarium, I'd love to hear it.) Of course, more remarkable than the mystery of its accidental inclusion in the peat is the fact that the tetra egg estivated within the peat for nearly five months. The only fishes common to the aquarium hobby which exhibit this feature of "annualism" — that eggs estivate in dry mud and hatch upon the re-emergence of the rains — are various species of killifish from South America and Africa. But, an "annual" tetra? Never heard of it in my circles.
May 1999
Mobbvists by GREGORY WUEST recently went with my girlfriend to the Orchid Show held in March at the World Financial Center. It really is a great flower show that is dedicated to just one type of plant, orchids. Besides all the wonderful flowers, the show has lectures, workshops and videos. It is very easy to spend an entire day there entranced in the wonderful world of orchids, even if you are not a serious orchid collector/grower. So what does this have to do with fish? Well I was amazed with the similarities between the orchid hobby and the aquarium fish hobby. First, these growers are very proud of their plants and look for every opportunity to show off their prize plants. We in the aquarium hobby are the same. I love to have people over to look at my fish. I will proudly point out all of my favorite fish or I will wait to see what fish people point out as really interesting specimens. Second, they seem to be a wonderful group of dedicated hobbyists that will share information about the plants and all that is needed to grow them properly. Now that also sounds like a group I know of. Every first Wednesday of the month we get together to do the same thing. So what do they teach people about growing orchids? First, you have to have the right environment for the plant. They tell me that as a rule of thumb, orchids like a humid environment, but the rest depends on the plant. That sounds very familiar. In our hobby, we always need to have good water quality but the type of water and tank conditions depends on the type offish we are keeping in the tank. For example, fish from the African Rift Lakes like water that is hard with a high pH, while fish from the Amazon Basin like soft, acid water. No matter which fish you keep, you still need to do water changes to keep conditions optimal. Second, you must observe the plants to make sure they are thriving. This is also true of our hobby. A careful eye will tell you if a fish is sick or if something is not correct in the tank. It will also tell you if a fish is ready to spawn. You will only be able to know this if you know what your fish looks like on a day-to-day basis. What about all that repotting and splitting of plants? Well, I know that I will often start juvenile fish in a small tank and then put them in a larger tank as they grow. I often find it easier to do this because giving care to very young fish is easier when they are in a small tank. In feeding newly hatched brine shrimp, I think it is easier for fry to find and eat in a 21A gallon tank, because
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Modern Aquarium - Greater City A.S. (NY)
they do not have to look all over a 10 gallon tank to find the food. They talked about orchids that were easier vs. those more difficult to keep, grow, and flower. Some plants are much more demanding and less forgiving in their care requirements. It is easy to draw parallels here. There are many articles that tell us some fish are easier to keep and breed, while others are better left to the more dedicated hobbyist. Just look at our breeders award program. We award different points to different fish because some fish will breed as long as you have a male and a female, while others need to have special requirements such as tank setup or perhaps special handling of the eggs, like the annual African killifish. Some fish are very intolerant of conditions that are not optimal. If they are not kept exactly the way they like, they will die. In one workshop, the orchid grower made a statement that you can not consider yourself a true hobbyist until you have killed a number of plants. You just need to learn from your mistakes. Well, if this is what qualifies us as a hobbyist then I surely qualify. I have killed a number of fish, and only after do I realize why they died. Sometimes I'm never sure what happened. I know that, when I learned people I consider truly great aquarists also sometimes kill fish, I was greatly relieved. Sometimes even the best make a mistake, or the fish simply do not like something about their new home. What about the people that are part of the Orchid Society and where they keep their plants? They very much remind me of GCAS. There are some members that have very little room and keep just a few plants in the limited space that they have. There are other members that have green houses or basements set up to grow these beautiful plants. I know that there are some GCAS members that have large fish rooms in which they keep many different tanks and species. There are also many GCAS members that have limited space and keep just a couple of tanks. It seems to just depend on how much time and resource one has to dedicate to the hobby. If that was not enough to make you think that there is not that much of a difference between the orchid hobby and the aquarium hobby, many of the displays had fish in them, either in miniature ponds or in bowls. It was a real treat to go to this show. I can only hope that our show next year will be as exciting as the orchid show and that we will continue to be dedicated members of our club and our hobby.
May 1999
Tlie Rest Of The
The Dragon
•ted by JOSEPH FERDENZI
s devoted readers of Modern Aquarium may recall, in the February 1998 issue I wrote a short article about The Dragon Murder Case, a best-selling mystery novel by S.S. Van Dine. What is significant about that novel for aquarists is that it prominently features various elements involving the tropical fish hobby — the murder occurs on the estate of a Manhattan millionaire who is described as one of the world's leading amateur aquarists. An entire chapter is devoted to describing his immense fish room. The main character (sophisticated sleuth Philo Vance) reveals that he too is an amateur aquarist and proceeds to describe his own hobby achievements. Since writing that article I have stumbled across new information that has caused me to, let us say, revisit "the scene of the crime." In my first article about this mythical murder, I postulated that Van Dine must have been an actual hobbyist because the details about the aquarium hobby in his book were so accurate and because he had written an article about "green water" in the July 1934 issue of The Aquarium (the magazine published by the renowned William T. Innes). Well, the new information I discovered absolutely confirmed this theory, but simultaneously shocked me. The truth was even more incredible than I could have imagined. And part of the shock derived from the fact that this "new" information was not really new at all — it had always lurked in my library, but had simply been "lost" in my memory. The rediscovery occurred on a recent day when I was preparing some notes about an old aquarium book that I was about to donate to a society event (November 1998). The book happened to be Tropical Fishes And Home Aquaria, by Alfred Morgan. This book was originally published in 1935, and was reprinted numerous times. Many years ago, I had acquired a copy of the first edition, and subsequently had acquired some copies of later editions. My original interest in the book had centered on the fact that Morgan had included, as an appendix, a list of the names and addresses of all the then known aquarium societies (which, as Morgan acknowledged, was reprinted from Innes's The
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Aquarium magazine). Of primary interest was the fact that this list included our own Greater City Aquarium Society. As I was perusing the book on this most recent occasion, my wife Anita happened to be looking over my shoulder. I was flipping through the pages, but only half paying attention to the text other than the title page and dates of publication, when Anita stopped me as the first page of the book's Foreword came into view, and rather innocently queried whether the author of the Foreword had the same name as the author of all those old mystery novels I had been reading as of late. Well, my eyes practically jumped out of their sockets. Sure enough, the printed page proclaimed the author of the Foreword as none other than S.S. Van Dine. Why had I overlooked this when writing the first story about The Dragon Murder Case? I think that is easy to explain. You see, at the time I first read the Morgan book, I had no idea who S.S. Van Dine was. My 1935 edition has no dust jacket (which sometimes highly tout a Foreword written by someone famous), and the book itself contains no hint of Van Dine's celebrity. Having no clue that there was anything significant about the author of the Foreword, my memory bank relegated that fact to my mind's dust bin. But now, having read many of Van Dine's Philo Vance novels, the Foreword of the Morgan book had taken on special meaning. First of all, its literary style is evocative of his novels. Secondly, it explicitly reveals that Van Dine was an avid hobbyist. Indeed, the entire theme of the Foreword is that the tropical fish hobby is like a disease, and that he has caught it. But, Van Dine explains, he doesn't want to be "cured." He goes on to list some of the fish he is keeping, using both common names and scientific ones (as he does in The Dragon Murder Case). He is obviously much enthralled by the hobby. The clearest manifestation of this passion is revealed when Van Dine tell us that he maintains sixty (60!) aquariums. My God, even by the standards of addicted hobbyists, that is a lot of fish water!
May 1999
Modern Aquarium - Greater City A.S. (NY)
WET LEAVES A Series On Books For The Hobbyist SUSAN PRIEST
t is not unusual for readers to have a favorite author, but how many of you have a favorite publisher? I found this slim volume sandwiched between a couple of "heavyweights" on a shelf in a bookstore. Apologies to the author, but as soon as I saw the word BARRONS in the lower right hand corner of the cover, I knew I would not be disappointed. "Of all the lakes on earth, Lake Tanganyika contains by far the most unique and diverse assemblage of freshwater fishes. The one family that overshadows all others in diversity and numbers is the family Cichlidae? Can a 96 page book do justice to such a vast topic? I'll tell you what you need to know to decide for yourself. The introduction includes a brief description of the 12 "tribes" (as defined by Professor Max Poll). According to the glossary, a tribe is "a taxonomic category that consists of several closely-related genera." Take a little extra time to familiarize yourself with these, because they are referred to throughout the entire book. Fish within a tribe have such things in common as distinctive coloration, size, and breeding behaviors. Here are a few facts about Lake Tanganyika itself. It is 420 miles long (approximately the distance between San Francisco and Los Angeles), and has 1,000 miles of shoreline. In the past it existed as three smaller lakes. The levels rose and fell, alternately connecting and separating them, allowing for a mixing of genetic material. Presently, 220 species of cichlids are identified. The water is hard and alkaline, and in some places you can see as far down as 70 feet. There is a chapter on setting up an aquarium. It pays particular attention to different types of filtration. The chapter about maintenance touches on diseases, and offers some tips on adding new cichlids to your collection. Due to their territorial nature, this can be tricky. The chapter on breeding cautions readers strongly about the dangers of inbreeding, and counsels them about proper techniques. Different
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Modern Aquarium - Greater City A.S. (NY)
tribes prefer different spawning habitats. "Species of the tribes Tropheini, Haplochromini, and Eretmodini inhabit the rocky regions of the lake, and will undoubtedly need a lot of shelter in the form of rocks." Other topics covered are difficult-to-breed species, dither fishes, and how to separate the juveniles from their parents. The next chapter is called "A representative selection of Lake Tanganyikan cichlids." Translation: finally we get to the fish! Notice the word representative. "Our aim is to cover those species that are commonly encountered in the trade, as well a few oddities and new imports that have entered the hobby over the past few years." Approximately 80 fish are described with text as well as photos. I will summarize the information presented about an individual fish as an example of what is offered for each one. Regular readers of Modern Aquarium should be familiar with this fish: Tribe: Lamprologini Name: Altolamprologus calvus Location and Natural Habitat: South West section of the lake, rocky shoreline. Fish can be found swimming between 10 and 135 feet deep. Adult Size: Males to 6" females to 4" Husbandry: Aquarium of 40-50 gallons for groups of five to seven fish, sizable rock crevices or clay pots with slit-like openings as a territory and spawning site. Diet: Invertebrates and small fish in the wild; readily adapt to aquarium foods high in protein. Breeding: Substrate spawner. Female will choose a crevice too small for the male to enter. As she lays eggs the male will lie over the opening and release sperm. The final chapter recommends suitable tankmates for Lake Tanganyikan cichlids from the Synodontis, Loricariid, and Rainbowfish families. At a cost of $6.95, you would be hard-pressed to get more for your money. I don't know if the author chose the publisher or the publisher chose the author, but they are a winning combination.
May 1999
13
the exchange column
TE by ALEXANDER A. PRIEST he New Hampshire Aquarium Society (NHAS) is a member of the North East Council of Aquarium Societies (NEC), as is Greater City. Often, the most recent NEC newsletter is reprinted in its entirety in this publication. New Hampshire is known as the "Granite State," hence the name of the NHAS publication, the Granite-Fisher. This publication utilizes the "booklet" format (8V4"xll" paper folded in half), with a cover that essentially remains unchanged from month to month (other than the color paper used, printing the month and volume of the issue, and a few words to briefly describe the contents of that month's issue). It is obvious that the Editor (Bill Janetos) takes pride in this iii|^ ^ ^ publication. There are frequently excellent quality inside black and white photos. (And getting black and white photos to reproduce well is not an easy task.) Since the purpose of this column is not to judge other publications, but to see what we can learn from them, here is what I've come across in reviewing issues of The Granite-Fisher: Most issues have an updated list of books in the NHAS Library. Apparently these books are available for member loan, as a member can call the librarian and ask to have the book brought to the next meeting. Now, while Greater City has a "Library" of sorts, it is closer to a public library's reference desk, with books available for use at the meeting, but not to be loaned out. Perhaps we can start a lending library, if someone has books to donate to start and someone else will volunteer to house those books and serve as librarian (with the added perk of having all unloaned volumes available for personal use). In addition to the monthly Bowl Show winners, the NHAS also publishes the Raffle Winners and their prizes. (If you notice in this issue, we are now publishing the winners of Greater City's monthly Door Prize.)
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Modern Aquarium - Greater City A.S. (NY)
Each issue has a Treasurer's Report, a report of the Board meeting, and a brief summary of the prior month's general meeting. While I'm not too sure about the value of a brief summary of the last general meeting (other than to say to those who did not attend, "See what you missed?!"), if a GCAS Board member wanted to make a summary Report to the members, I will make the space available. Some interesting things can be learned from their Board report, such as the fact that they decided to offer half price membership through coupons at pet stores. (Interesting idea, that!) Members can accumulate "Aquarist Points," which appear to be similar to Greater City's "Aquarist of the Year" award, except that the top honors are earned by accumulating points throughout the year. "Aquarist Points" are earned in many ways. Bringing a show entry, or refreshments, or an auction item each is one point. Just showing up at a meeting will give you two points; add another two points if you bring a guest. Submitting an article is three points (the NHAS also has a contest where each newsletter submission entitles the author to participate in a drawing for the Baensch Atlas, vol. III). Either being a speaker or recruiting a member gives you five points (in addition, a $50 gift certificate is awarded to the member recruiting the most new members in 1999). Aquarists in New Hampshire appear to have problems purchasing, and even auctioning, aquatic plants. Section 487:16-a of the New Hampshire Revised Statutes states: "No exotic aquatic weeds shall be offered for sale, distributed, sold, imported, purchased, propagated, transported, or introduced in the state." Section 487:16 defines as "exotic aquatic weeds" aquatic plants which were not native to New Hampshire before 1950, but gives only two examples of "exotic aquatic weeds": Cabomba caroliniana and Myriophyllum heterophyllum. Pollution of lakes by plants from fishtanks is very unlikely. But, it is easier to pass laws against aquarists than to address the likely cause: pleasure boats to which plants have attached themselves in one place and deposit pieces all along the boat's route. (Remember, pleasure boating is big business in New Hampshire). As with all exchange publications, issues of the GRANITE-FISHER are available for review or loan to any GCAS member upon advance request.
May 1999
15
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May 1999
Modern Aquarium - Greater City A.S. (NY)
G.C.A.S. HAPPENINGS Due to our annual Silent Auction, there was no bowl show last month. The standings to date are: Sept *98 — June *99 Bowl Show Standings to date: 1) Tom Miglio - 22 points 4) Leonard Ramroop - 5 points 2) Bob Wranovics - 11 points 5) (tie) Pat Piccione and Jeff George - 3 points 3) Howard Berdach - 9 points 6) Tsu Yong Ko - 1 point
New members:
Nelson, and PetefSiiid:Mar|3 Woltjen
Pi?i|!|e ^|^|jq|^|ie^|; . . The winner of.jjiMini Atlasii- Frelkwater Aquarium fishP;:J§v SiliAxelrpd wal^Jjorence Gomes ,;|-:' Nexif::i|!ijonitiiiifs (June) door prize: an AquaClear 20^i;itiltgiiF '"**%>..
§intact::::|lonktucci (Fax: 860-583-6238, Home: §-Mairl^||yi:;Catucci: vito@snet.net or Wally _.$. website: http//pap^ For information on events in June and fitiyond, go to "FIS see |i||6 in this issue for Gre^ttif &$$:May 22 "Fish Fri|« for information on the May 14-16 Marine Symposium and Auct
" at Greater City's website. ion and family event and pap:1f the Brooklyn Aquarium Society ;:;
- ^ijitfopciiiifan New
Here arg meeting times and locatj(p^|taquariuin
Fish Wits:l|ine. Host||:;1byx|i ||8PM:::;;|e;exi'
Aquarium ^ May 14, 15, 16 (see facing, pap^l Garden Sileo
Tent - N. . St. , : BAS
§erve.coni Apple Thurslpf each
Meets: : i%P. M . " u i j E i v o f e||l month at thie::;||ueens Botaiieal Garden i|l Contacts: Jeff <||jQrge / Gene'::§iij|tj^;:::i:;:::::::x,^ Telephone: (718p|8y:190 / (516)34l^l§if
iMeets:-::|Dp ;::month aif the
Long Island Aquariuifn Meets: 8:00 P.M. - 3rd Friday of each month at Holtsville Park and Zoo, 249 Buckley Rd. Holtsville, NY 11801 Contact: Mr. Vinny Kreyling Telephone: (516) 938-4066
Society 8:00 P.M. - 2nd Tuesday of each month at the William M. Grouse Post 3211 V.F.W., Rte. 107, Hicksville, NY Contact: Mr. Ken Smith Telephone: (516) 589-0913
North Jersey Aquarium Society Meets: 8PM - 3rd Thursday of the month at the American Legion Hall, Nutley, NJ (exit 151 Garden State Pkwy., near Rt. 3) Contact: NJAS Hotline at (201) 332-4415 ore-mail: tcoletti@obius.jnj.com
Norwalk Aquarium Society Meets: 8:00 P.M. - 3rd Thursday of each month at the Nature Center for Environmental Activities, Westport, CT Contact: Mrs. Anne Stone Broadmeyer Telephone: (203) 834-2253
Modern Aquarium - Greater City A.S. (NY)
May 1999
: (718)
19