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[Randy / Deb Carey <carey@spacestar.net.REMOVE.to.SEND>]

I'm Randy Carey, living in the Minneapolis/St.Paul area.  I've been 
keeping fish for eight years and have been an active member of the 
Minnesota Aquarium Society for six years.

While some fishkeepers center their interests on one group of fish (like 
nothing-but-cichlids), I center mine on compatibility and similar water 
requirements:  smaller fishes in very soft and somewhat acidic water.  
My fish room of 50 tanks is designed for keeping such fishes as 
characins, barbs/rasboras, and Apistogrammas.  For instance, most of my 
20 longs contain about three schools of characins and one colony of 
Apistogrammas.  This scheme works great.  When needed, the characins are 
removed to spawning tanks.  Meanwhile, the Apisto's rear their families 
at the bottom of the tank.

I suppose I've successfully bred and reared 15 to 20 Apistogramma 
species.  Right now I'm "harvesting" F1 fry for A. nortberti and A. sp. 
brietbinden, and F2 fry for A. sp. Puerto-Narino (see Aqualog).  I'm 
working on spawning a few species of wild-caughts:  A. nijsseni, A 
gephra, A. bitaeniata, A. gibbiceps, and three other species I've yet to 
identify.  I plan to bring what fry/juveniles I can to the ACA this 
summer.

As you can see, I have been obtaining my Apisto's through wild-caught 
imports.  Recently I got to visit an out-of-town wholesaler who let me 
buy through a friend.  Because I have studied fin shapes and patterns of 
the Apisto's, I was able to recognize such things as a tank marked 
"bitaeniata" having an additional species mixed in.  In that case I 
bought the remaining 16 fish and the "additional" species (11 of the 16) 
turned out to be the beautiful "gephra."  What a catch!  

My recent interest in Apistos has been in identifying them--needed when 
you deal with wild caught stock.  Too often, I've seen aquarists "pick 
out a name" for thier Apisto because it looks mostly like one in a 
picture--but they have never evaluated some of the key features which 
are useful in identification.  Shortly, I will begin work on writing an 
article and on developing a master identification chart based on visual 
characterisics.

Just in case some on this Apisto list do not belong to an aquarium 
society, I must ecourage them to join and get involved.  Only because I 
have been involved and networked through mine have I been able to 
advance and stay motivated in this hobby during the past several years. 
 We take trips to fish stores in nearby cities, order rare fish/plants 
as a group, exchange success/failure stories, bring in great speakers, 
etc.  Like the ad says:  "Just do it."


-- Randy Carey

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