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2700 Ornamental Fish and Aquatic Sketches
"New Edition of Ornamental Fish Disease Atlas"
Source: http://www.reef2rainforest.com/
Translator: Wang Zhongjing (Taiwan)
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【 Editor's Note 】
Happy New Year! Unconsciously, ifish has accompanied everyone for more than a year, thanking the fans for their support along the way. I wish you all success in 2016!
On the first day of 2016, ifish takes you deep into the Amazon jungle of Colombia to explore Leticia, located on the special borders of Brazil, Peru and Colombia.
With the excitement of catching my first glimpse of ornamental fish in the wilderness of Villavicencio, Colombia, I decided to finally bypass Bogotá and enter the heart of the Amazon. My goal: Leticia, the southeasternmost corner of Colombia, a 700-mile voyage from Bogotá. It is a remote area that can only be connected by air and river transport, and is one of the hotspots for the collection of ornamental fish, with a group of common fish species that are routinely collected and exported. Shortly after my first glimpse of the Amazon jungle from the clouds as the plane descended, I arrived in this humid tropical town with a bustling harbor packed with motorcycles and boats.
The "downtown" and main roads of Leticia, from here it can be extended to the surrounding forests
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Partly because of its unique location, Leticia is a bit like the three-way strip bordering the small town of tabatinga in eastern Brazil and Peru on the other side of the Amazon. Locals call it tres fronteras ( Tres Frontiers ) – the borders of the three countries that can be traveled back to and from the Amazon on foot or by boat between the three countries without the need for passports or any form of border checkpoint. Here, civilians living along the river had priority over any race born here, and locals could move freely from one country to another on a regular basis. Like the population of the region, fish species exported from Leticia and from Bogotá are also a bit like a melting pot, with fish often collected in Brazil and Peru.
Hand-drawn map of the Border of Tres. Colombia is on top left, Brazil is on the right and Peru is on the bottom left
My first destination is outside the city, in the Indian tribes of Tacana, where I will visit some of the ornamental fish gathering points over the next few days, hoping to somehow connect with the people involved in collecting and transporting fish in the area. Located between the Amazon and tacana rivers, this area is an irregularly quiet blackwater river and creek, which is an incredibly rich area for ornamental fish species. With the help of a local guide, my wife and I took the first afternoon to collect fish in the tacana area by foot and canoe. Even with basic hand-copied nets, we can collect general ornamental fish, including silver and marble swallows, snappers, splash fish, pencil fish, and a variety of other Galasin species.
Explore a small stream in tacana by canoe
The first fish caught: a large splash fish
An interesting unknown Galatian lampfish was also found in tacana (presumably tyttocharax species)
After a short walk, we continued into a tribe of macuna Indian families from whom we received permission to collect fish (indicating that I would simply collect, photograph, and return the fish to their habitat instead of bringing them back to eat). Tennis fish (headstanders; chilodus punctatus) and hundreds of flying phoenixes (semaprochilodus sp.) were found in these larger streams and still ponds, and I was a little surprised to see them in such still waters. Later, in a shallow stream of clear black water that runs through a clearing, we also encountered a wide variety of species, including general helicopters (farlowellas), bristlenose plecos, dozens of pairs of phoenix bream with small fish (laetacara), large peacock dragons (crenicichla) and hoplias sp.. In this stream, which contains thousands of juvenile laetacara bream, some juveniles of the satanoperca leucosticta have also been found, but no adults have been found.
Tennis fish collected near the Macuna Indian tribe
The beautiful chief bream and tennis balls are caught together in shallow streams
The oviparous mackerel found in the still pond is a brightly colored male
In the still ponds of the rainforest there is an abundance of short seabream and mackerel
After we had explored the area around Leticia, I asked any locals we met if there were any fishermen in the area who were collecting ornamental fish. Sure enough, I've been repeatedly told that there are very few such people, and if any, most full-time gatherers would live outside the city. Although the general ornamental fingerlings in the tacana region are relatively abundant, fishermen in this area have only occasional jobs, preferring to work in remote areas where large numbers of high-demand fingerlings can be found. No one knows any of the ornamental fish collectors currently working in the ornamental fish trade, so we decided to regroup and visit some of the buyers/collectors who own floating stocking equipment or rafts on the river the next day and take a closer look at how lethcia's ornamental fishery works. After that, we'll sail to the Amazon to visit some of the fish-gathering areas that more often pass through Leticia to Bogotá.
Branch helicopters collected in sandy shallow streams
A pair of laetacara bream with small fish. They are the most abundant cichlids in the region
The first day in Leticia was a perfect return to Amazon life, and the ability to collect beautiful ornamental fish in its wild habitat was an incredible experience, and I was constantly wondering if I would be able to reach fishermen and buyers in the area I wanted. This is difficult in any aquarium trade fishery – even at a relatively small throttled station like Leticia. For the most part, it's a small industry, dwarfed by the catch of food fish, so it tends to be overlooked by locals in general, but I hope to at least be able to observe and talk to some of the people locally responsible for catching wild fish from the Amazon to the aquarium in our homes.
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