December 2007
Contents   President's Message

We are in the process of planning a field trip in February to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, CA. You will see the basic information below as we have it now for your advance planning. However we still hope to set up some sort of ridesharing program, and have yet to select a hotel in Monterey.

If you would like to become more involved in the planning for this event, or are willing to help out in some other way, such as driving up as part of a ridesharing situation, phone me at (619) 267-2236 or email me at prattc@adminoff.com.

Charles Pratt

Upcoming Events at SDTFS

December 9, 2007 - The meeting will be in room 104, directly across the courtyard from 101. Monthly Meeting and Annual Awards Presentations plus elections of officers for next year. There will be a potluck dinner. One person attending should bring one hot dish, two people should bring one hot and one cold. There will be an auction and a raffle, as usual.

February 23, 2008 - Field trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, 886 Cannery Row, Monterey, CA 93940. This is a Saturday, and we will meet at the museum at 10:00 am. Admission is $25.00 per person. We are in the process of making more arrangements, and more information will be forthcoming. You will probably need to arrange your own transportation to get to Monterey, though there may be some ride sharing set up. For more information on the aquarium visit their web site mbayaq.org

Annual International Fancy Guppy Association 

Meeting And Show

Charles Pratt

Ben Ivy and I attended the Annual International Fancy Guppy Association Show at the Johnson and Wales Inn in Seekonk, MA during the same weekend as our local SDTFS Annual Tropical Fish Show, November 2nd, 3rd and 4th. The meeting was hosted by the New England Fancy Guppy Association. There were 731 entries and it was the largest guppy show in the world not only for this year, but for several years past.

Here are some pictures from the show:

These two photos demonstrate the quality of the fish at the show. The fish on the left is a green delta, and the one above is a Half Black Green Delta.
Mauricio Moreira now lives in the U.S., but he was born in Brazil, and recently sent guppies to the big annual Brazilian Guppy Show, where he won the medals he is holding up.

You can see some of the show entries behind him.

 There were several attendees from outside the US, including Eddie Lee on the left, a well known Guppy breeder from Taiwan shown here with Dr. Frank Chang who is from the Los Angeles area..
Mike Khalid, also from the Los Angeles area is President of the San Fernando Valley Guppy Club. Alan Opdyke on the left, President of IFGA presents the Grand Overall Male award to Bob Lewis.
Ben Ivy with his award for Half Black Yellow Male Runner up for the year of 2007. Ben achieved a very enviable distinction at the show. He became the second person in the entire history of the IFGA to pass both the written and the visual tests to become an accredited IFGA judge in the same day. Charles Pratt (Yes that's me on the right) receiving an award for Blue Green Class Female runner up for the year of 2007.
This is a photo of the auction, held right after the show.  Many of the entries were auctioned. These auctions are a good place to get really good stock. One of the special events at the show was a tour of Bob Lewis's home and hatchery. This is a tank of his fish.
A view down one side of Bob Lewis's hatchery of over 200 tanks of guppies. Another shot of one of Bob's tanks. These are mostly 10 gallon tanks set so we are looking into the ends rather than the sides. Notice he uses two box filters per tank and dolomite as a filter media, which both weights the filters down and keeps the ph high.

Ben and I were sorry to miss the great show at SDTFS, but we had a great time in Massachusetts, visited with a lot of friends and saw a lot of terrific fish.

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