By Rick Boester, GCCA & MAS

It has been a long time since I have written anything for the Milwaukee Aquarium Society. I was thinking of writing something about a debate I have been having with Kevin Korotev about sexing zebra plecos but decided it was a losing battle. He still hasn’t convinced me there isn’t some kind of relevance in the striping pattern, but he has put doubts in my head. Then I thought about I should write something on the GCCA Classic coming May 24,25 and 26 at the Holiday Inn Holidome in Rolling Meadows. On second thought I need to mention a few things so here goes my pitch to come this year.

Friday night we will have Rick Borstein from Adobe giving a presentation on digital imaging. Rick will also being auctioning off a software program after his speech and Adobe will be offering a great show special on their elements software for digital imaging of only $69.00. Then Daryl Syska will give a talk on genetics and diseases.

Saturday starts off with Dr. Marty Greenwell D.V.M. from the Shedd Aquarium on disease prevention and fish nutrition. Followed by Julia Mann, discus author and international show judge. Julia will also be donating some of her discus for silent auction on Saturday. Then Saturday afternoon starts off with Pam Chin, PCCA editor, author of "Ask Pam", winner of FAAS awards including "Best Continuing Column" and Author of the Year, and founding member of the BITCHES (Babes in the Cichlid Hobby) talking on African’s. After Pam is a breeder panel discussion which will include your very own Dan Cram and Tom Wojtech along with Milo Manden, Rick Perez, Howard Schmidt and newest and fastest to achieve Master status Al Desautels.

Is that enough? No, following the panel will be Mike Wise from Colorado talking on What's New & News in Apistogramma, Breeding Apistogramma. Mike has been a member of the Apistogramma Study Group since 1983 and is the technical editor for the Apistogramma Study Group since 1985. I refer to him as Mr. Apisto! Then of course we have the Cichlid Classic show where some of the most beautiful cichlids kept in the hobby can be seen.

We are counting on donations from several vendors which so far include New Life Exotics, Pablo’s Teepot’s fish farm in Florida, (which will be in the silent auction on Saturday) and possibly from a collector from Africa with some never before seen fish and another farm in Florida for South Americans.

We will have the awards banquet Saturday night (with your pick from a menu of several choices) and of course the Hospitality room on Friday and Saturday night. The cichlids only auction is on Sunday with Mike Schadle doing the auctioneering. Well enough on the Classic, but there will be more yet to be mentioned. Stay tuned but if you are planning on attending and staying at the Holidome, get your reservations in early as we are expecting a sell out on the rooms. Mention the GCCA Classic to get the $79.00 rate.

Now back to the pleco:

We acquired these beauties from a friend, Robert Smith, from Texas. Robert knew we like plecos and said he found a guy that raised these plecos and wanted to know if we would be interested in getting some. He described them rather poorly and said they had about a two inch dorsal fin on them. As they were rather expensive and since he was coming to visit, we said we would take six of them. When we got them, we couldn’t believe how beautiful they were and asked if we couldn’t get more. He hooked us up with the guy and I called him. Wouldn’t you know it he had just sold out. This was in May and he said to call him back in August and he would have more. I anxiously waited until August 1 and gave him a call. He said funny you should call he was going to take his adults to Houston tomorrow and sell all he had. Now I was getting excited. I asked him how many he had and he said 40. After a little negotiating, I, excuse me, I mean we (my wife, Monica, had to give her approval), we came to a figure between one and two thousand and agreed to buy them. He said he would throw in twelve small ones he had to cover the shipping and for buying them all. We put eight of the 2.5" "fry" up for auction and got over $320.00 for them so I guess he more than covered the freight. I have enclosed a picture that hopefully will be included with the article. I can honestly say the picture doesn’t really capture all their beauty. They breed just like a normal Ancistrus. The guy we bought them from said they bred in Rhino type caves, one on top of the other. We put these caves in the breeders tanks along with the "Boester’s pleco bells" and they have always chosen the bells to breed in. If this isn’t enough, we are getting a few albinos out of one of the group’s we are breeding. Hope they turn out to be longfins also but they are too small to tell yet.

Return to Main Index

Hope to see you all at the Classic!