Cutting Edge
By Derek Lambert
This month has been a very hectic one from the fish import
side of things. The new Koi season has just kicked in and dealers have some of
the cream of Japanese breeders fish on offer. Whilst, up to now, not a great fan
of Koi Carp, I found myself entranced at Shirley Aquatics on April fools day as
they showed off some of the this seasons imports. Absolutely stunning creatures
every one and proof that I have been the "April Fool" for not looking
closer at these wonderful works of living art.
Moving on to my "shop of the month" I was pleased to visit Swallow
Aquatics at their Rayleigh site in Essex. Despite living in the London area for
many years I had never visited this shop before, so it came as something of a
surprise just what a good venue it is (I thought I knew all the good ones!).
Thinking about it now, it should not have come as a surprise since the owner is
Mike Seaby - Chairman of OFI and a board member of OATA. The high standards
these two trade organisations want our aquatic industry to reach are epitomised
by this shop.
For those of us who are looking for something a little on the unusual side, this
shop had a good range of catfish (plenty of ‘L’ numbers and Corydoras),
characins including Bathyaethiops breuseghemi (a rarely seen African
species) and some lovely Altum Angels competitively priced at £17.95.
Importing fish from all parts of the globe like this aquarium shop does means
that odd things turn up from time to time. This was the case a few weeks before
my visit when some "Indonesian Butterfly Fish" arrived as a
replacement for a species which was unavailable. They were about 5cms in body
length and mottled brown and tan. They mostly sat on the bottom and had a large
upturned mouth. Typical ambush predators if ever I had seen one.
These unasked for creatures certainly caught my eye and despite a hunt through
all the books available at Swallows we could not come any closer than Nothestes
robusta, which has the unlikely common name of Bullrout! This species was
fairly similar until we took a close look at the dorsal fin and found our fish
had two distinct dorsal fins instead of one.
Normally such a rarity would have found its way into my ever present polystyrene
box for the trip home but these fish were living in brackish water and I had no
aquarium available to house such animals. Reluctantly I had to leave them behind
but promised to try and find the scientific name of these strange imports.
Using the Bullrout as a starting point I checked up on its close relatives (Scorpionfishes)
and after a little searching tracked down our "Indonesian Butterfly
Fish". Vespicula depressifrons, Waspfish, were a perfect match. They
live in esturine conditions throughout Indonesia, Philippines & New Guinea.
My first impressions of them being a bottom dwelling ambush predator were
confirmed, although these have learned to take frozen foods as well as live.
A cautionary note was also sounded. Many of the fish in this family have
poisonous spines and number some of the most deadly poisonous fish in the world.
Whilst nobody relates just what would happen if your finger were impaled on a
Waspfish’s dorsal fin spine, a degree of caution would be wise when handling
these creatures.
Apart from the tropical freshwater and marine fish sections, coldwater fish had
their own hall. Here my eye was taken by some full grown Axolotls. There were
some youngsters on sale which turned out to be the offspring of the adults.
Whilst a little early for the new season coldwater fish, what was on sale were
healthy fish of a reasonable standard. One or two Fantails were well up to
British show standards and would have done well on any show bench in the
country.
Moving on from Swallow Aquatics to our "fish of the month" I hand you
over to Kathy Jinkings who brings us one of her personal Goby favourites. These
rare fish turn up in the trade from time to time and are well worth searching
out.
The Red Throated Goby (Rhinogobius Wui)Aquarist and Pondkeeper Articles
