Category: Updates

We are now less than 50 days from this National Convention! Have you registered? It’s okay if you haven’t, you still have time. Follow this link https://catfish-cataclysm.com/ to register. The food deal actually sounds fabulous! We are looking forward to food, fish and fun! Stay tuned as more details are announced!

We continue to draw closer to Cataclysm. This event is a must for any catfish nuts! We will share a few talks but also plan to bring some fish along. This event presents a rare opportunity to meet with and discuss some of our favorite groups of fish. And for the first time, to our knowledge, Duringlanis altae will be made available. These little gems have incredible pattern and no two fish are exactly the same! But if you want a chance at these, you will need to attend this magical event. For more information on this species, please click the link here to PlanetCatfish.

Are you ready? Ready for Cataclysm that is! We are just over 100 days until this amazing event. What could be better than fish and friends? AmazonTropics.com will be on hand and presenting not just one talk but two! One talk will share some of the species of catfish we have collected in Colombia while the other talk will try to sort some of the complex groups of catfish known as woodcats.

The event also will host various vendors, a Saturday cookout, raffles and a rare catfish auction. And to celebrate, we are sharing tonight that available in the rare catfish auction will be four first generation Liosomadoras oncinus, the Jaguar Catfish. First generation meaning that the parents were from the wild. This is likely the first time tank raised specimens have been made available ever! Check out the photos below along with this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8uO-vMnehs Be sure to register for this event today at: https://catfish-cataclysm.com

Hello everyone! Earlier this week the temperatures were very spring like. We took the time to do some hiking. Photos of some of the areas we visited are below. This is likely the last week for spring like temperatures as summer is finally here. Many of our counterparts in the west are certainly feeling the summer heat with temperatures well over one hundred degrees.

As we move into summer, the hope is that fish events will start up again. The next major event will be the American Cichlid Association (ACA) Convention in Saint Louis. We currently plan to attend so there will be a chance for folks to preorder some fish. Also on the horizon may be the chance to travel outside of the US. We are still a ways away from planning anything but we have our fingers crossed!

Lastly, we want to remind everyone that we will be at Cataclysm in October. We are just over 100 days away from this big event. As a special announcement, I would like to share that we will be offering, likely for the first time ever, F1 Liosomadoras oncinus, the Jaguar Catfish. There will be a total of four fish available as part of the Rare Catfish Auction.  More exciting rare catfish will be announced soon so stay tuned!

We are cautiously optimistic as things stand right now. While the number of people vaccinations in the U.S. has dramatically increased over the last month, COVID numbers are again on the rise. Chances are this can be contributed to the change in weather along with families on spring break. We hope everyone is staying safe during these times and please consider getting the vaccine.

On the horizon, there are many upcoming fish events including: the Greater Pittsburgh Aquarium Society Inc. Swap, the Northeast Council (NEC) Virtual Convention, the Youngstown Area Tropical Fish Society (YATFS) Auction, the American Killifish Association (AKA) Convention and the American Cichlid Association (ACA) Convention. Only the NEC event is virtual so you now have a chance at attending all the other events in person! Fingers crossed that these events can proceed.

Lastly, a few folks have asked about shipping. Right now it just is impractical to offer this service. If you wish to obtain fish from us, the best way is by meeting at a fish event or porch pickup. Please feel free to email us if you have further questions. Thanks!

It is almost the end of February, where is the year going? It is starting to feel like spring. Just within the last week, temperatures are pushing near 60F! With the amount of snow we have had this winter, it is a welcome change. Hopefully things continue to change and improve with a third vaccine now available. We are hopeful that the worst is behind us.

Speaking of which, today marks six months since Jeremy’s appendicitis operation. The operation did not go quite as planned. It has been a long road to recovery. There are still a few issues but the worst is hopefully behind him, fingers crossed!

With spring approaching and virus numbers coming down, we are glad to see some fish events that have been planned. That said, we still believe that online meetings will continue to be the norm until the vaccine is widely available. From there, we hope that things will begin to slowly open up including, perhaps, the opportunity to travel. Only time will tell and we must all continue to play things safe and follow the guidelines that have been laid out.

Perhaps the largest event coming up the Greater Cincinnati Aquarium Society’s (GCAS) Swap Meet. All of the tables for this event are sold out! While we did not secure a table, we hope everyone enjoys this In-Person event. For details, please visit the GCAS website: http://www.gcas.org. Unfortunately, a few In-Person events have been cancelled including L Number Days in Germany and InterZoo. We hope that other events towards the end of the year will still happen but things are not overly promising at this moment.

A quick moment about  Facebook. While many would state that there is a lot of misinformation on the website, it also has provided perhaps the most up to date information on new species being described by scientists and in some regards, real time scientific discoveries. We hope to continue sharing such discoveries on our Facebook page. For the most current updates, I would recommend visiting our Facebook Group page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmazonTropics

Lastly, many have asked for an updated fish list. Due to the weather conditions, shipping delays and healthy issues, we feel it best to continue to offer porch pickup only. In time, we hope to start attending fish events again. So stay tuned and stay safe! In the meantime, here are some photos of plants from our 2010 Peru trip to Madre de Dios.

Happy New Year! Or at least we are hoping for a better year than last. And while this year has had a rough start, there is reason to be hopeful for the future. While these are trying times, there could be stability soon enough.

It has been a month since our last post and we thought it was time to share some updates. Hopefully, if all goes well, we will see everyone in WI for the catfish friendly event Cataclysm. There we hope to share details from our last trip, some new thoughts on woodcatfish and so much more! We are also planning to bring some fish including some special rarities. More details will be forthcoming so stay tuned to here and visit the Cataclysm webpage at: https://catfish-cataclysm.com/

One last update before we go, we have been having some success with the raising of several woodcats. We are happy to report that we have F1 Duringlanis altae, D. perugiae, D. romani, Tatia reticulata and F2 T. strigata coming up. With any luck, we will have some others soon. The hope is to start producing enough to get them into the hands of other avid aquarists. While everyone is crazy for plecos (we are too!), it is nice to see some other cats in our aquariums. We leave you with a sneak peak of one of the offspring coming up.

Happy Holidays everyone! While this year draws to a close, there is a lot to be thankful for despite all of the challenges. A big thank you again for those that reached out to us. While still on the mend, we continue to become stronger each day.

At this point, we are looking forward to 2021 but know there is still a long road to recovery for the nation and the world. With the potential of a vaccine, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We hope this brings relief especially to those that have the highest chance of contracting virus. We also hope this will offer us a chance to travel in the second half of the year. Only time will tell but for now, we all need to sit tight and continue to quarantine.

Below are some recent photos of some of our fish including: Tatia musaica. Hope everyone enjoys the photos and the holidays. Take care and we will see you in 2021!

First, a big thank you to everyone who reached out to us after going to the hospital. Unfortunately, there have been some complications and we are still recovering. The good news is that we are alive and will live to fish another day! It has been quite a few years for us and 2021 cannot get here fast enough!

Now on to the good stuff. Last December, a group of us traveled to Florencia, Colombia in the Caqueta region. This area of South America can be defined as Andean highlands with lush forests, many insects especially ants and a very catfish friendly paradise. We hope to share many of the species we found in this location with everyone at a Catfish Convention in the future. Fingers crossed that we can get back to such events soon.

Prior to going on these expeditions, we always investigate to see what species of fish we may encounter. One of these species was Duringlanis altae. This species was first described by Fowler in 1945 and is closely related to Duringlanis perugiae. Few pictures of this species exist and only recently have collections in the area been possible due as travel to the area was unsafe. A more detailed account of the trip will be made possible in a future magazine of Amazonas. Please subscribe to this wonderful magazine if you have not already by visiting their website at: https://www.amazonasmagazine.com/

Our collecting group was successful in finding this species in the Rio Caqueta region and bringing them back to the U.S., perhaps for the first time? Even more exciting is that we have the first fry of this species. This is likely a world first spawning event! With that, we share below some of the first photos of this species settled in the aquarium. As you can see, this species is quite nice and each fish has a different design. In the near future, we hope to be able to make this species available to avid catfish enthusiasts. Stay tuned to this website for more updates!

After a few years, our Jagaur Catfish,  Liosomadorus oncinus, have once again spawned. Interestingly, the first clutch of eggs numbered around 1,000 and almost all were infertile. Then a week later, another clutch of roughly 400 eggs were laid. Out of these, half appeared to be fertile. Several hours later, we had separated the good eggs from the bad. Another interesting observation was that the eggs were in various stages of development. Some eggs appeared to have fully formed juveniles that were about to hatch while other eggs were still just yolks.

At the time of writing this update, all eggs have hatched and the fry have started feeding. One last observation is that the fry have very long barbels already. One can assume this is to make finding food much easier. Fingers crossed that we are able to raise these and make them available to other aquarists.