Going to The Aquarium of the Americas tomorrow...

[Decker504]

It's been a while for me. I plan on hanging out extensively in the Amazon exhibit. Hopefully take some cool pics and vids....

[cghiotto]

Nice!

[Decker504]

I was kind of bummed out. They had blackbelts, synspilum, blackbelt/synspillum hybrids, hybrid parrot cichlid, midas cichlids and one big female petenia splendida in the "AMAZON" exhibit, no south american cichlids in main waterfall tank. I tried to find put the curator of the exhibits name to write him a letter. They used to have beautiful festae and uarus before Hurricane Katrina. Even had a picture of a giant male festae on entrance board to exhibit. I am willing to donate some of my festae fry and my friend breeds geos. I plan on contacting the curator and seeing if I can help make exihibit REALLY about the Amazon. I will post pics and vids soon, working a double.

Do you guys believe that an Amazon exhibit should house endemic species not hybrids from other areas?

[blaciarmd]

I had a similar experience recently. It seem they just visited the LFS to stock their exhibits. I thought they would at least keep CARES fish or even wild caught fish, but not the varieties normally available to hobyist.

[Mikeinco]

while i believe anyone should be able to keep whatever fish they want an amazon exibit should only have fish endemic from the amazon. I would have been very disappointed and this shows the lack of interest from the curator. I had a similar experience here at the Denver Aquarium and haven't returned since.

[bomillyiam]

Quite honestly, Festae don't inhabit the Amazon. They are from the coastal rivers of Ecuador. But I am upset as well that there are no longer any there at the Audubon Aquarium. There use to be several magnificent specimens herding fry amongst many predatory fish including a 2.5 foot red tail catfish, who ironically killed a large male festae introduced to the exhibit by biting off it's face when the festae attacked it head on. The male festae had been donated by the brother of an employee.

[Decker504]

I uploaded the vids to youtube, but I have a crazy schedule and will post tonight or tomorrow. I was always told there was also a Colombian race of festae as well. I have Peruvians too...