# ACA 2008 photos (lots of fish and some other)



## ikevi (Jun 11, 2006)

I decided to make a new thread... For more on how we setup see: http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/view ... p?t=176184

So the new stuff:

So here are some fish photos and some people shots. I personally got to busy after 1:30 since I and a few other people set up oh ~25 more tanks. I also was in charge of making sure all the donated fish got into tanks and weren't going to die. (I say I did a good job considering the circumstances.) All fish were doing well when I left. I dread bagging for tomorrow.

Needless to say I am dead tired again. But before I sleep here are photos:

First most fish from the top row... I took these early before things got crazy so I missed a bunch. I learned a bunch about Discus from Discus Hans. Though sadly I had to miss his talk since I was dealing with the 30 boxes of fish...

I am not going to comment much.

Fish:

































































































































































A very controversial fish... Beautiful fish but well needless to say every person stops at that tank for some reason or another.


























Now this is what I was doing... Most people likely heard me yelling over the top of everyone to get things done. Needless to say people get chatting here. (Oh and I have to say this is a lot more work then I expected... )

Anyways what happened was 30 boxes were picked up by me and John. From there I and a bunch of AAAA put them into the tanks we had... Sadly about 15 had broken so we didn't have enough tanks. We stuffed the fish into 10s till we had some more tanks brought in. (A family that I wont name since I don't really want to say last names, but mad props to them.) Anyways 2 55s, and many many more tens/twenties/fifteens were filled by me and Becky. We ended up moving about half the fish to new tanks. Refilling some tanks with new water and more fun.... Anyways here are some more pictures of some of the temp tanks setup.


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## famikert (Feb 20, 2003)

Excellent pictures, it looks like some of the fish were posing for you


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## haibane (Jun 2, 2008)

Did the discus survive? A few weren't looking too good. Also Rapps show up?


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## bulldogg7 (Mar 3, 2003)

I love that #18 pic, looks like a big smile.
Wish i could make it this year, only a 5 hour drive, but finances are super tight this year


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## chapman76 (Jun 30, 2004)

Love that firemouth!


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## heylady (Oct 14, 2004)

Excellent photos!! :thumb: As always I wish I was close enough to make it to one of these


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## Eric C. (May 1, 2007)

Thanks alot for sharing these pics with those of us who couldn't make it.

Keep up the good work. :thumb:


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## stuckinthemiddle (Feb 26, 2008)

do you know what time the auctions starts on sunday?

That firemouth is by far the prettiest I have ever seen!


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## ikevi (Jun 11, 2006)

The discus are all good. I had a good talk with Hans about them. He says that they do that a lot and all they were doing was filling there air sack. Sure warmer water will help prevent that, but they were just fine. (He only lost one and that was D.O.A. from the flight.)

The BITCHES auction just happened some amazing deals... I walked away with 1 male (7-8 inch) 3 females, Exochochromis anagenys, all for 80 bucks... That was the second most expensive purchase. (The discus went from 25, and 30 bucks.) Everything actually went much cheaper then I expected.

The huge auction will be starting I think 9 sunday. At least dry goods will. Registration starts at 7:30 am. Goes till we get done. (Well I think we have to be out like by 6 or so.)


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## Natalie (Jun 11, 2007)

I'm confused about Sunday's auction and have a few questions. First, are _all_ of the show specimens being auctioned off or just some of them?

Also, do you have to be an ACA member to register for the auction?

Finally, will you be auctioning by categories (ex: S. American, C. American, etc. etc.) or just randomly? Thanks!!


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## ikevi (Jun 11, 2006)

The auction is open to everyone. IE no restrictions at all.

Some people will be selling there show specimens.

It is random. But if you want some particular fish to get put to the front just buy a priority sticker, put it on the bag, and then point it out to a runner. (You are not allowed to remove fish from the viewing area.)


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## Natalie (Jun 11, 2007)

Thanks very much!


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## ikevi (Jun 11, 2006)

I just wanted to show you the best of show and also the peoples choice. He was raised in a 10 by himself and was always showing off. Hopefully my male will look like him in another year or two. (So far things are looking good.)


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## famikert (Feb 20, 2003)

Beautiful Peacock :thumb:


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## ikevi (Jun 11, 2006)

Last of my pictures... I encourage anyone to post pictures of the auction. I forgot my camera today.


















Saddly this front didn't every really calm down enough for me to get a good shot. Well without me running the chance of causing him to hurt himself.


































































































































































































This is the lwanda without flash. His yellow shoulder kept on bleeding some to blue when I used flash. 










































































































Just a for fun picture. (I obviously liked the fish...)

























































































































And that is it. I don't really plan on doing much in photoshop. I can tell you all the fish in this post if you want me too. (I think I have shots of their names... sort of forgot to do that the first time I was snapping pictures.)


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## renegade545 (Jul 4, 2008)

Love that first firemouth, absolutely gorgeous.

What is this fella?


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## TheDiscusKid (Aug 8, 2003)

renegade545 said:


> Love that first firemouth, absolutely gorgeous.
> 
> What is this fella?


That is a Hemichromis Elongatus. Cool fish to see in person. Some guy brought some to the show but they were already presold  . Nice fish though :thumb:


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## FishAreFriends (Dec 23, 2004)

That lwanda won best in show and peoples choice?


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## F8LBITEva (Nov 9, 2007)

sweet pics! wish I could have made it.


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## Cichlid-Man (Jul 29, 2003)

FishAreFriends said:


> That lwanda won best in show and peoples choice?


Yep! Took first in its class as well. :thumb: Was an amazing fish. Hands down the best peacock i've ever personally seen.


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## jd_7655 (Jul 23, 2004)

Nice pics I like the ones of the pike a and first firemouth


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## FishAreFriends (Dec 23, 2004)

Hmm looks nice i suppose. Was there not a good showing for peacocks?


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## finman57 (Oct 11, 2005)

FishAreFriends said:


> Hmm looks nice i suppose. Was there not a good showing for peacocks?


Brian, there were not a lot of Peacocks but this guy was hot...
Had to see him in person. 
I voted for him.


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## chapman76 (Jun 30, 2004)

The Lwanda must have been something special in person because it looks good, but many of the others look as good or better. Nice collection of fish.


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## FishAreFriends (Dec 23, 2004)

^Exactly what i was thinking! Some nice looking fish there.


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## jmexoticafricancichlids (Oct 19, 2006)

That lwanda was perfect. Perfect fins, perfect size, perfect personality. The pictures definately do not do the fish justice. Do a search on google for that specific fish and you will see many more pictures of that fish. It really put the lwanda that my buddy and I brought to shame; just by sheer size. The lwanda was EVERY bit of 7" and fins flowing all the way till the end of his body. Our Lwanda was only 4" at best but was the best fish we brought; he placed 3rd. The Ruby Red placed second and that mammoth lwanda won the class, best in show, and people's choice!!!


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## ikevi (Jun 11, 2006)

As said the lwanda was great. Though personally owning a bunch of lwandas I didn't quite see why everyone was stunded by him. I can say that the owner raised him to be a show fish. I mean he grew up in a 10 in a kitchen or some type of situation. IE his personality likely was what made him the winner. (IE he was showing off constantly, never was afraid and was basically the ideal fully grown lwanda.)

The only problem I had for the malawi fish was that a lot of them were just young still. Some great stunners, but well I didn't take any photos of fish I have that are better... (IE jmexoticafricancichlids Protomelas sp. "Spilonotus Tanzania" was a great specimen... but if I had decided to mess up my comunity fish and take my fully grown 9+ incher...) (Also the Otopharynx lithobates (Zimbawe) were young, the Champsochromis, really every hap was in essence half grown.)
Though I can't even say that would have helped since as I said the Lwanda was grown to be a show fish. Mine are all for community fish, with large tanks. (And I don't have any peacocks that would have beaten the Lwanda.)

Also honestly Lwandas are likely one of the hardest fish to photograph to there true potential. The blue tends to become too heavy with a flash, and without the yellow looks a little washed out. (IE it doesn't have the vibrant color they do in person.)


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## jmexoticafricancichlids (Oct 19, 2006)

The reason why people were stunned by him is because you just don't see a lwanda at 7" on an everyday basis. Also, the Lwandas that I constantly see are the "yellow" variant rather then the orange variant. Personally, I like the orange/red top rather then the yellow top IMO. I don't know why they say "red top" because in all honesty they are a dark orange rather then yellow. IMO if they were to call a lwanda "red top" I would assume that it would be a cherry red. But to each their own. Yes, a lot of my fish were still young. This was my first show and now I know what I need to do in terms of showing fish. Next year I should be attending the ACA and OCA b/c they both will be in Ohio and I will have an arsenal of stuff to show that should be "bigger" and better then what was shown in Atlanta. Granite, I thought the Red Cap Lethrinops was a GREAT specimen, however, he was just a silver fish. If he sported his green sheen he definately would've probably won the class IMO. I was shocked that we did so well IMO. I wasn't even going to take the sp. Spilonotus "tanzania" until the last day when my Pheno split his fins breeding. The ones I will be working on are a few of the peacocks I took and probably a few more haps. I guess we'll see. I never have seen the quality of discus I saw in Atlanta. They were truly jaw dropping!!!


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## ikevi (Jun 11, 2006)

Heh, you should have heard the judges on the discus... They were picky... very picky. I hadn't even seen any that big, then Hans started dropping his into the tanks and I was stunned.

As for the haps/peacocks I wasn't trying to focus on you. I meant everyone didn't bring in there big guys. (Except the Lwanda.) I asked around about why that was, since I know for a fact that a lot of Atlanta people keep Malawi. Everyone said it was basically like my case where we just didn't want to chance reintroducing alpha males to tanks that are working out well.

The reason there were so many large CA/SA fish was because people tend to just give a whole tank to those guys.


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