Volume 2007, Issue 3 March 2007 I'AO HAWAI'I I'A O HAWAI'I. Fishes of Hawai'i A HONOLULU AQUARIUM SOCIETY PUBLICATION

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1 I'A O HAWAI'I Fishes of Hawai'i A HONOLULU AQUARIUM SOCIETY PUBLICATION March 2, 2007 Chase Inouye & Ken Takeuchi Exotic & Native Animals in Our Streams Meeting Location: Kuhio Elementary School Cafeteria 2759 South King Street Enter from Kahoaloha Lane April's Coming Attraction: Aaron Padilla Emersed Plant Culture Contents * President's Message * HAS Policies/St. Patrick's Day.2 * HAS Membership Application..3 * President's Message continued/ Advertisement * Release Form Over * Wonderful Little Gourami Malpuluta kretseri * Wonderful Little Gourami cont..7 * Release Form Under * Honor Roll/Mission Statements.9 * Wonderful Little Gourami (continued)/auction Form...10 * Board Highlights * Advertisements President s Message by Wayne Steljes I was very pleased to have the turnout we did at the last membership meeting especially with competing with Punahou School s yearly carnival. Just a reminder, not everyone has renewed their membership for this year. Please do so if you haven t done it yet; we need to get the news letter to all of our members. Alison Sherwood s presentation on Algae was quite interesting. I didn t realize that there were so many different species, and still more that had not even been classified or discovered. We were lucky that Alison brought microscopes that we were able to use, how generous of her to share. I could see our members were very interested in looking at the algae through the scope, especially our junior members. During Alison s presentation I saw that she captivated the audience with her expert knowledge and delivery of the subject matter. I think that I recognized some of the algae, because I have it in my tank! I m sure some of you have an exotic strain or two. We just need to know how to get rid of it!! Thanks again to Bob (grasshopper) Ueki for generously donating the Gymnogeophagus balzanii for our grow out this year. You did it again Bob!! I know that some of you may have gotten a female geophagus, please don t panic. We will give a prize for the largest female also, so now you might win a prize Continued on page 4 1

2 HAS Policies The Board of the Honolulu Aquarium Society has decided to enact the following policies in effect for the year This is all an effort to encourage more participation amongst members to be beneficial to the society. We appreciate the effort that already is shown, however in the interest of having a strong and active society we will be putting in place mandatory participation in the following areas. The way you can fulfill your obligation to the club is to do one of the following: - Write an article at least 1 paragraph long. The subject can be anything related to the hobby. It could be a practical tip or something that you do that has had success or has failed. [If assistance is needed, the board will be available for help]. - Help Auction Chairperson with the auction as either a recorder or stage help for at least 2 meetings. - Help sell raffle tickets for 3 meetings. - Become committee members on the annual picnic and/or Christmas party. - Enter a tank in the show. - Be a member of the show committee and help set up and break down the show. - Help with the membership and Aloha committee for 3 months. - Do a program (talk for the club). - Join the Board for 3 months. - Donations (monetary, goods, etc.) There will be consequences if you do not fulfill your obligations to the club. You will lose your privileges for the auction and will not be allowed to bid on items. Obligations may be excused and made up if explained to the board. Participation will be noted in the newsletter and kept track on our participation binder. There will be sign up sheets for the first three (3) meetings and as a member you will be able to sign up for as many committees as you want. At the end of the third month, the board will assign you to a committee. 2

3 THE HONOLULU AQUARIUM SOCIETY MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION Please Circle One: New Membership / Renewal Application Date: Name (Last, First MI): Address City State Zip Home Phone: Work Phone: Cell Phone: Address: Check the appropriate boxes: Individual Annual Dues $20.00 (1 card) Extra Membership Card(s) for family members are $5.00 each. Names: Junior (under 18 years) Annual Dues $6.00 How long have you been raising fishes? How many aquariums do you have? What types of fishes do you raise? How did you find out about this organization? What type of activity would you like to see in the future? What type of benefits do you want to receive from this organization? What type of skills/talents do you bring to this organization? 3

4 Continued from page 1 for the largest male and female in the Novice and Advanced category. Remember, length is probably the most important criteria the judges look at. Last year we had some really fatso shiny Barbs, and the judges thought that they were not natural looking. Lance Pang and I had some really fat Barbs and the judges thought that they weren t nice looking, huh, what do they know! Okay, put this date on your calendar April 21, 2007 at 10:30 am. This is for the Pleco roundup in Manoa stream. We will meet at the Manoa Stream Bridge to get briefed. Bring your nets and buckets, and make sure that you wear shoes so you won t hurt your feet. Waiver forms can be found in this newsletter and will be available at the March & April general membership meetings. We will also have some available at the Manoa Stream site. Please turn them in at our general meetings; however if you decide to come the day of the roundup, please do not forget to bring the waiver form with you. We caught approximately 675 pounds of Plecos last year; let s see if we can break that record. At our next membership meeting Chase Inouye and Ken Takeuchi will be talking about exotic and native animals in our streams. It is vital that we are stewards of our own aquarium fish, and we don t purposefully or accidentally release them in our streams. Joni and Tennyson Foo wrote a great in-depth article on the Nishikigoi Expo. I found it quite interesting and got scared when I started to think about keeping Koi, but I soon came to my senses. HAS is enough for me! Keep the articles coming, we all enjoy reading them. See you all at the next meeting. 4

5 March 2007 Volume 2007, Issue 3 5

6 The Wonderful Little Gourami Malpuluta kretseri by Chuck Nishihira Over the years, I have been fortunate to have worked with many wonderful species of aquarium fish. I think the really neat thing about this hobby is that there is always something else to try. Be that something new or some rarity that you see in a book or magazine. I always thought that it was funny that one of the most elusive fish and therefore desirable species for me was a little gourami. Funny because it s colors could easily be described as brown on brown. Not a great color combination to a lot of people I am sure. As far back as I can remember, I have always thought the few photos of this gourami illustrated a remarkable fish. But, I had never run across any specimens that were available or spoke to anyone who had actually kept this species. This for me certainly put this fish into the class of the somewhat mythical. The gourami that I am writing about is Malpuluta kretseri. It is a monotypic genus, as the species kretseri is the only member. This points out how unique this species really is. This special little fish comes from a fairly small region on the island of Sri Lanka. It has long thought to be in trouble in the wild, and access to the area in recent years has been difficult. I am sure that this is another reason for it s scarcity in the hobby. M. kretseri as mentioned before is a relatively small fish and full grown males have bodies only about 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 long. These adult males might appear a bit larger, as they possess tails equally as long. A fair amount of this length comes from a single central filament. The smaller females are about 1 1/2 including their somewhat less than exciting tails. Another unique feature of the male is its somewhat unusual dorsal fin. Long and trailing like the tail, the dorsal fin adds to a beautiful profile. To be honest, I never did give M. kretseri a lot of thought. Sure, I knew that I would like to try and keep it someday. I also knew that if I heard any tidbit about someone keeping it, I would go out of my way to try and acquire some. I guess since no opportunities ever arose, this was the main reason for not giving it a lot of thought! I think it was around April of 2005 that I saw my first live specimen of this species; I have to admit I was completely unimpressed! I think to be fair to the fish; there were a few good reasons for this. First of all, the 4 individuals I saw were very young pairs, neither of the males possessed the fantastic fins I had seen in the photos from long ago. Secondly, I think this was stock that had gone through many generations in the aquarium somewhere in Europe. Without the ability to add some fresh stock into the mix, the fish became somewhat inbred. They did not have the nice clean lines that I expected to see. The 2 pairs were up for auction and the price did not go up very high, but I did not entertain any thoughts of bidding. Funny, as I flew back home, I didn t give my decision a second thought. Almost a year passed by and M. kretseri was never part of any of my frequent daydreams. And before anyone thinks I m weird, no my daydreams aren t just about fish! Of course you are welcome to think anything you want, if in your book, even having one fish daydream is weird! Anyway, almost a year after seeing those first ones, I came upon some M. kretseri for sale from Singapore. I quickly contacted the seller and he said these were wild caught and were very nice. I wasn t sure if he was just telling me things I wanted to hear, but I thought I would give it a try anyway. When they arrived, I was positive I made the right choice. Now, if you think that a brown on brown fish can t be nice, I m here to tell you that you are wrong! Now, these still might not be your kind of fish, but I think it would be hard to deny that a male at his best is not a nice fish! And I can confidently say that I think these are the most beautiful brown on brown fish that I know of! This species can actually change colors quite a bit and can be a uniform brown like my photo. But at its best it is a light golden brown with very crisp dark brown marbling all over. The gill plates can take on a very nice copper color and this really adds to it s muted but elegant color pattern. To complete the picture, the fins can also be quite 6 Continued on page 7

7 Continued from page 6 marbled with browns as well as softer blues and reds. All in all, it is a species that has nothing to compare it to. A complete surprise to me was the ease in which this fish can be maintained and bred. In all the literature, it is said to be sensitive and quite finicky. This couldn t be further from the truth. Upon arrival, I immediately put these into a half filled 10 gallon aquarium. Other than a thin layer of dark gravel and a half of a flower pot, the tank was bare. I used soft water and a small piece of Indian almond leaf for its tannins. That was it, as with most of my tanks, no filter or even air was supplied. While, not the boldest fish, they would come out regularly to interact with one another and to feed. I kept them on a diet of baby brine shrimp, mosquito larvae and little frozen bloodworms. All of these were taken with no issues. The water temperature was in the mid 70 s, although this did fluctuate with the day time temperatures. It s really quite a simple set-up and easy maintenance. After a few weeks, the male constructed a bubble nest under the roof of the flower pot. It was a fairly small nest, but perfectly adequate for the purpose. At this point the male got a little more aggressive, but nothing too bad. He would chase and try to entice the female into his cave. After a few days of this behavior, she finally was willing to venture in. The spawning was typical of a gourami, that being the male wrapping his body around the female in a short embrace. The eggs are laid and fertilized and fall to the bottom. After a short moment where the pair seems a little stunned, the male proceeds to pick up the eggs and spits them into the nest. They repeat this sequence quite a few times and in the end the female has given all of her eggs. The female is then chased away and can no longer come close to the cave. After experiencing several spawns, this is now my lazy way of determining if they have spawned. The female will have a few wounds and she can no longer stay towards the middle of the tank where the cave is. If the tank is large enough, which a ten gallon is, you can just leave the female in. She should be fine and she causes no problems for the eggs or fry. The male watches the nest for about a week and seems to be a great father and watchman. He just guards the eggs. In fact, he never ventures out, even to feed. While he s a great guard, he is a bit lazy in the home maintenance department, as during this time he doesn t seem to repair the nest and it is not uncommon for all the bubbles to disappear. Since the eggs hatch within the first 3 days, this lack of bubbles seems unimportant. The newly hatched fry have large yolks and hang from the ceiling of the cave attached by their heads (not sure of the mechanics of this, but they seemed to be glued to the top of the cave by their heads.) After another 4 days, they start to dart around in the cave, still closely hugging the walls. It is after this point that they start venturing out and all the parenting stops. In fact the male completely ignores the fry. He makes no attempt to protect them and they do not represent food to him either. The nice thing is that the female has the exact same views. Within another week, the fry which for me have been numbering around 50 per brood inhabit all areas of the tank. They might be feeding on smaller live prey items that are naturally in a tank, but it appears to me that they can take brine shrimp from as early as day 7. Is the baby brine shrimp their first food? I am not sure, but I have not supplemented them with anything else in the beginning. It appears as if the survival rate is very high, somewhere near 100%. After another week, the young, which are quite tough by this point can easily be moved to another tank to grow out. I also start feeding microworms at this point, just to give them a little variety. Using just baby brine shrimp and microworms, I have not had any difficulty keeping the fry going until they are large enough to start taking the mosquito larvae and frozen blood worms like their parents. In the end, I am quite surprised that this species has never gained a greater audience. They are pretty in the pictures and even prettier in real life. Their care is simple and straight-forward, as is their breeding. I know with all this going for them, they would still never be a common petstore gourami. If nothing else, I hope they will at least become more widespread then they have Continued on page 10 7

8 Volume 2007, Issue 3 8 March 2007

9 These stores support the Honolulu Aquarium Society by donating prizes, which are awarded at our functions, and by offering a discount to members who show their membership cards when making purchases: Aloha Aquarium Kamehameha Hwy, Kaneohe (Back corner or T. Yogi Building) Enchanted Lake Pet Center 1020 Keolu Drive, Kailua Modern Pet Center 1331 Makaloa St Coral Fish Hawaii 810 Moanalua Road, Aiea Moanalua Pet Center 4510 Salt Lake Blvd # A Petland Ala Moana Shopping Center Kahala 4400 Kalanianaole Hwy Pet s Discount Warehouse 4384B Malaai St Waikele Center Hawaii Kai Town Center Kapiolani Blvd Pets Plus 250 Ward Avenue # HONOR ROLL The Fish Shack 720 L. Main St. Wailuku, Maui (808) /(808) fax Pet s N Plants Kamehameha Hwy Kalihi Pet Center City Square Shopping Center 1199 Dillingham Blvd. Suite The Pet Spot Pearl Highlands Center 1000 Kamehameha Hwy They Deserve Your Support!! The Honolulu Aquarium Society Established in 1950 Mission Statement: The Honolulu Aquarium Society is dedicated to the promotion and encouragement of the Aquarium Hobby. We share knowledge, experience and fellowship among all our members, both novice and old-timer. We endeavor to preserve the natural habitat of Aquatic Life. We seek to gain personal development in the breeding and showing of aquatic life, and to stretch the boundaries of Hawaii to like-minded people though out our nation and the world. HAS News & Notables IMPORTANT NOTICE: MEMBERSHIP RENEWALS ARE DUE. PLEASE RENEW DURING THIS MONTH S GENERAL MEETING TO CONTINUE TO RECEIVE OUR NEWSLETTER. MAHALO $20.00 for an individual plus $5.00 for each additional membership card. This way a family of 3 can have three cards for $30.00 per year. Annual membership for Junior Members (17 years or younger) remains at $6.00. Disclaimer Opinions expressed herein are those of the authors, and not necessarily those of the Honolulu Aquarium Society (HAS) or the editor of I A O HAWAI I. Articles from this publication may be reprinted by nonprofit organizations provided proper credit is given the author and HAS, and that two copies of the reprint are sent to: The Honolulu Aquarium Society P.O. Box Honolulu, HI Next Board Meeting Board meetings are open to all members. The next Board meeting will be on Tuesday, March 6th, at 7:30 p.m. It will be held at The Susannah Wesley Community Center at: 1117 Kaili Street Honolulu, HI

10 Continued from page 7 dart around in the cave, still closely hugging the walls. It is after this point that they start venturing out and all the parenting stops. In fact the male completely ignores the fry. He makes no attempt to protect them and they do not represent food to him either. The nice thing is that the female has the exact same views. Within another week, the fry which for me have been numbering around 50 per brood inhabit all areas of the tank. They might be feeding on smaller live prey items that are naturally in a tank, but it appears to me that they can take brine shrimp from as early as day 7. Is the baby brine shrimp their first food? I am not sure, but I have not supplemented them with anything else in the beginning. It appears as if the survival rate is very high, somewhere near 100%. After another week, the young, which are quite tough by this point can easily be moved to another tank to grow out. I also start feeding microworms at this point, just to give them a little variety. Using just baby brine shrimp and microworms, I have not had any difficulty keeping the fry going until they are large enough to start taking the mosquito larvae and frozen blood worms like their parents. In the end, I am quite surprised that this species has never gained a greater audience. They are pretty in the pictures and even prettier in real life. Their care is simple and straight-forward, as is their breeding. I know with all this going for them, they would still never be a common pet-store gourami. If nothing else, I hope they will at least become more widespread then they have in the past. Especially since now there is fresher stock around. With their survival in the wild always in question, it s even more important from an aquaristic standpoint that they continue to survive in our tanks. AUCTION FORMS We need your help! Please discard any OLD auction forms you may have and use the form below. This NEW form has a DONATION column. If your item is a donation please check this column. This will help us keep track of any auction item that is a donation, and we can recognize your contribution to the club. We will have blank forms at the auction table. Please list your auction items before the meeting. This will expedite the handling of the auction items before the meeting starts. Thank you for your cooperation. 10

11 The Honolulu Aquarium Society Board Meeting Highlights February 6, Tuesday - 7:30 p.m. Members Present: Lance Pang, Eric Hayashi, Ken Takeuchi, Alan Teraoka, Wayne Steljes, Richard Hee, Daniel Hee, Robin Echavaria Treasurer's Report for Previous Balance $ 5, Income Expense (481.44) New Balance $5, The Honolulu Aquarium Society would like to welcome the following new members for February: Chad Bulacan Mathew Horner Ken Scott Robb Malefyt Scott Malefyt Damian Garcia MAHALO The Honolulu Aquarium Society would like to thank the following members for their donations: Robert Lau 6 bags of plants Preston Otsuka 5 bags of fish Wayne Ito 5 bags of plants Andrew Wakuzawa 1 bag of plants Neil Yamagata 3 bags of plants Randall Young 1 bag of plants Lance Pang 3 bags of plants 11

12 Advertisements WAINANI KAI SEAFOOD 2126A ELUWENE STREET CALL (808) NOVEMBER 2003 HOURS M-S 7:00AM TO 2:00PM HYDRO SPONGE FILTERS (RAISED OFF BOTTOM WITH WEIGHTED BASE) III $8.00 EACH IV $8.75 EACH V $9.50 EACH REPLACEMENT SPONGES III IV V $4.50 EACH $4.75 EACH $5.00 EACH FILTER MAX PRE-FILTERS (CAN BE USED AS PRE-FILTERS FOR POWER HEADS OR CANISTER FILTERS) II $7.00 EACH THERMOMETER (STICKS TO TANK) GLASS AIR STONES EBO-JAGER HEATERS $2.50 EACH $1.70 EACH 15 INCHES 200 WATT $16.00 EACH BRINE SHRIMP EGGS 16 OZ. CAN (90% HATCH RATE) SPIRULINA POWDER ROCK SALT 50 LB BAG $45.00 /CAN $8.00/1/2 LB. $12.00 /BAG Commercial Advertising Rates Betty Steljes, HAS Our monthly ad rates are as follows: Full page (8-1/2 x 11) $11.00 Half page $ 7.00 Quarter page $ 5.00 Eighth page $ 4.00 Business card $ 2.00 Please submit camera ready Advertisement to the HAS Editor and payment to the HAS Treasurer by the 17 th of the month to be published in the following month s bulletin. For more information, please contact HAS Editor, Betty Steljes, at or alohabetty516@aol.com. FROZEN FISH FOOD FOR THOSE WHO CARE YOU HAVE BEEN HEARING ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF NATURAL ASTAXANTHIN. NOW IT S AVAILABLE IN A FROZEN DIET. THIS IS A NEW AND IMPROVED FORMULA FOR MOST TYPES OF TROPICAL FISH. NATURAL ASTAXANTHIN AND SPIRULINA IS ADDED TO IMPROVE THE HEALTH AND COLOR OF YOUR FISH. THIS FOOD WILL HELP CONDITION YOUR BREEDER FISH WITHOUT THE USE OF LIVE FOOD. CONTAINS: BEEF HEART, SALMON. LOBSTER MEAT AND ROE, SCALLOP, KRILL, ASTAXANTHIN, SPIRULINA, MULTI-VITAMINS/MINERAL SUPPLEMENT, & GARLIC. $9.00/LB. 12

13 March 2007 Volume 2007, Issue 3 13

14 I`A O HAWAI`I Fishes of Hawai`i A Honolulu Aquarium Society Publication I'A O HAWAI'I THE HONOLULU AQUARIUM SOCIETY P. O. BOX Honolulu, HI PRESORTED STANDARD U.S. POSTAGE PAID HONOLULU, HI PERMIT NO CURRENT RESIDENT OR