I had never been to the American Livebearer Association annual convention, but decided that since it was going to be in St. Louis this year, it would be a perfect time to get my feet wet. It was a smaller convention than the Amer. Cichlid Assoc., but there were a lot of nice people involved as well as many interesting speakers. As these conventions usually do, they also had a vendor room, an auction, and members selling fish out of their rooms. I think there was also a hospitality room, but we didn’t get around to that on this trip. I had kept livebearers early on in my fish keeping, but had wandered away as I became more experienced. Recently I had decided to try my hand at raising lyretail Swords again, so this was a good opportunity to associate with hobbyists who were committed to the liverbearers. The one thing I did notice is that much of the interest is now involving raising some of the “wild” type livebearers which were not readily available when I was starting out. Besides new species, the collecting location has become more important due to the loss of habitat.
The show was a good opportunity to see many species that are not readily available at the local fish stores, as well as really good quality specimens of the species that are readily available. I did take some pictures that I’ll also be posting. Then there was the visiting of hobbyists rooms to see what treasures I could find for myself. I did end up purchasing some outstanding lyretail swords, and some Chapalichthys encaustus livebearers. Unfortunately, these last fish were packed 2 males in one bag and 2 females in the other. The males didn’t survive the trip home. Now I have to try to find some more so I can have pairs or trios. That did emphasize to me how important it is to bring large bags to these events if you’re not going to be going home immediately.
It was nice to see some members of NW Arkansas Aquarium Society at the auction on Sunday. I probably looked totally surprised when i realized Will and Ashley had driven to St. Louis for the auction. They looked like they were having a good time, and they actually stayed longer than we did. Now I’m going to have to wait and see where the convention will be held next year to see if another visit will be warranted.
Denny Rogers
