Crap U.S. Retail Access to Atyopsis -- and the Death of College and the Betta
botia
On Jan 07, I found her dead, perched on one of the Sagittaria subulata
plants. It is not clear the cause of death, but age related natural
causes is suspected. Since last June I had expectations of mating the
shrimp, but a few days before her death, I had a most unpleasant
conversation with one of the few major wholesale outlets for aquarium
fish -- Southland Aquatics in Los Angeles. The exact source name I
withhold due to the sensitive nature of the pet import reality. Had I
known this feature of the 'business' I don't think I would have been so
patient -- and maybe I might have approached the breeding idea very
differently. To make a long story short -- the word is that I was
waiting in vain. My source told me that the U.S. retail market for pet
fish --ain't exactly a market pushing quality animals, and like alot of
other markets which import animals; these animals are acquired under
terms and conditions that don't exactly have the health and wellfair
factor as priority. In fact, with very few exceptions, of the animals
that are removed from the wild -- they are first reviewed and sorted by
many other private breeders, before, the U.S. wholesale outlets get a
crack at them on the cheap. In effect, screening out quality animals,
much of the time. Atyopsis moluccensis is worth more to the retailer
at a younger age, but since sexing younger shrimp is difficult, it is a
guess to the wholesaler which ones are male -- and no real demand for
adults...........except for the private breeders, many of them
Japanese. This means whatever ratio of adult males are acquired, are
almost never reaching the U.S. market. This condition explains why I
have never known of a case of someone successfully breeding Atyopsis
moluccensis. The proverbial cards, are stacked against me. Such is
life. The vicious circle ensues: people think the animal novel and
easy to care for -- they buy them, them die, and they get more from the
streams overseas -- trampling the ecosystem. Viva the "pet" trade.
Tank Two (30gl) will remain online and I will now purge Tank One
(10gl), sending the botia morleti and plants into Tank Two. On another
somber note -- one week earlier the betta in Tank Three (really a
gallon bowl) died. She was a delight to have, brilliantly simple to
care for and a character to boot. Well... there may be truth to, the
dead of winter.
Present parameters; Tank Two is a 30 gallon tank holding about 26
gallons of fresh water, pH 7.8 and stable. Four drops Iodine added for
last weeks. Carbonate hardness of 2.2 and, water temp 25.5C during
the day dropping to 21 C during night -- no more additional heating
facilitation to bring up faster the temperature as of today. Low levels
of nitrate, stable. Daphnia population exhausted. Blood worms
population exhausted. Hydra population exhausted. Common water Snails
small and stable. Cyclops population small and stable. Java ferns (2)
stopped growing. Java moss (four bunches) stable and stopped growing.
Amazon swords (2) flora stable and growing. Lotus (1) flora stable and
rapidly growing. Sagittaria subulata, twenty eight plants, spreading
restarted. UnID "I" worms population small and stable. The Atyopsis
moluccensis (College) about is about 5.75 centimeters in length --
exhausted Jan 07, 07.
"That is all."