Author: Jeremy Basch

Spring is less than 30 days away! Winter has felt a little longer for some reason this year. During this long winter, we have been busy working on the fishroom mostly. There is still a ton of work to do including more drilling and painting of tanks, plumbing work and setting up more racks. And let’s not forget those water changes. A fishroom is always a work in progress!

Fish event season is  here with the Greater Cincinnati  Aquarium Society (GCAS) and Columbus Area Fish Enthusiasts (CAFE) each having their Swaps in the last few weeks.  If you missed those events, you missed your chance at some awesome fish! Each club is now bringing in neat fish for New and Rare Silent Auctions during the swaps. There were some truly stunning fish available from several great sponsors. Each swap had over 30 tables from vendors all over Ohio and beyond.

On the horizon is now the CAFE’s Spring Auction. We are exactly one month away, March 22nd, and there are going to be some very special fish in this year’s auction. What might be there? Well you will just have to wait to find out. Stay tuned to the CAFE Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/columbusfishclub and be sure to review the auction rules prior to the event at http://columbusfishclub.org.

The All-American Catfish  Convention or CatCon, as we like to call it, is later this year. This is the premier event on catfish. Meet catfish nuts from around the globe in a fun, entertaining and educational atmosphere. We will be there presenting two talks, one on Colombia and the other on Auchenipteridae – Woodcatfish.  It is not too early to start making plans for this event. As a matter of fact, the website just went live last week. Be sure to get your hotel room and register for this one-of-a-kind event! Follow the link to sign up: http://www.catfishcon.com

Lastly, we wish to share a sneak peek of one of the species we collected in the Rio Caqueta. For those into Aucehnipteridae, you might recognize the fish as a Tatia intermedia type. There are a few differences however if you look closely at the video. Can you spot the difference? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCeAXYbdTxY

Welcome to 2020! Happy New Year to everyone! We are happy to see the calendar switch over to a new decade. 2020 almost seems futuristic when you think about it and with that let’s focus on just that, the future of AmazonTropics.com.

It is with great honor and pride that we announce that we will be one of the guest speakers at this year’s All-American Catfish Convention, CatCon 2020! This event is the premier catfish convention with amazing speakers from all over the world and right here in the U.S.A. A few speakers have already been announced with more to come!

CatCon also has great vendors that sell products just for all of our special whiskered friends. One of the main attractions of the event beyond the speakers and vendors is the Spree On Three! Breeders and Importers sell catfish and other fish species from their hotel rooms. This is always a big hit and AmazonTropics.com is already planning to have as many fish available as possible. More to come on this as the event approaches. So please be sure to mark your calendars for October 8th-11th! Stay tuned by visiting here:  CatCon Facebook Page

In other news, we have finally been able to put more time towards making the fishroom as we intended it to be. So far this year, we have already replaced several tanks with new ones and resealed our 120 gallon display tank. As you may recall, it suddenly leaked last year.  We have also made glass lids for the new tanks.

Our next speaking engagement will be in Cincinnati on January 26th. The presentation will share parts of our travels through Colombia. Join us for a fun night of fun, friends and fish. Details can be found here: Greater Cincinnati Aquarium Society

We will sum things up in that life is short and live your life to the fullest! This has been by far the most difficult year for my family and I. It first started with the loss of one of our brother’s in June. And now in October, the loss of our father. Both were very sudden and my family and I are still trying to navigate the waters. It will take time to get through these losses but we will keep pressing on. We would like to thank of those that have reached out to us in recent months. The aquarium hobby is more than just about the fish, it is also about the people. We thank everyone for that!

There is one last major fish event to attend this year and that is the Ohio Cichlid Association (OCA) Extravaganza. This will be their 25th anniversary! We can say we have been going for 18 years ourselves. It is a great event with around 400 cichlid and catfish enthusiasts. It is one of the largest freshwater gatherings in the country and just a ton of fun. https://www.ohiocichlid.com/extravaganza/registration

We plan to sell some fish so stay tuned! There will be a limited number of some fish and it will be first come, first serve. We will have some of the usual species and a few new species to offer. Looking forward to seeing everyone at this great event!

Around the corner is our trip back to Colombia. This will be our 3rd trip to Colombia. This time we will be in the Andes in the major tributaries of the Rio Magdalena and the Rio Caqueta. While these areas have been explored, there are still many new species to be discovered and many species that simply are not in the hobby. We are truly looking forward to this trip as a welcomed distraction to everything that has happened this year.

More to come!

The Columbus Area Fish Enthusiasts (CAFE) Fall Auction is finally here! Join us tomorrow for an epic auction! There will be a ton of rare fish species that have been lined up by the club. A special thanks to Paul Wingert for acquiring and housing most of the New and Rare (NAR) species that will be in the auction. AmazonTropics.com will also have many species in the auction for NAR including pver a half dozen pleco species, three woodcats species, two cory species, two types of shrimp and much more! See everyone there. For all of the qauction details, please visit CAFE’s website: http://www.columbusfishclub.org/cafe-springfall-auctions/

It is almost here! Are you ready? That is right, fall convention and auction season is upon us. It is a time to get together with friends from around the fish hobby to catch up on life and all things fish related. In particular, we are looking forward to Cataclysm. If you are into catfish, this event is a must! There will be great speakers, catfish and a fun time. Check out the Cataclysm website for more details: https://catfish-cataclysm.com/

Below is an availability list for Cataclysm. All fish are first come, first serve. These are for pre-sale only. While we may bring fish with us, we cannot guarantee this due to our work schedule. Please contact us via email if interested: jeremybasch@gmail.com. Take advantage of the free shipping!

Also on the horizon is our local auction, the Columbus Area Fish Enthusiasts (CAFE) Fall Auction. Our chairman, Paul Wingert, is doing a great job promoting the event on Facebook. Just scroll through all of the auction entries and you see some pretty incredibly rare fish species! Here is a link to the CAFE Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/columbusfishclub/ For all of the auction rules, please visit CAFE’s website at:  http://www.columbusfishclub.org/

Beyond convention and auction season, it looks like we will be heading back to Colombia sooner, rather than later. Things are still coming together for the trip so we cannot share too much just yet. We can share that our objective is to go to the Rio Magdalena and the upper reaches of the Rio Caqueta.

A target species for this trip will be Centromochlus altae. Thankfully due to a few trips previously by other groups, we have confirmation that the species is in the Rio Caqueta region from where it was described. Fingers crossed we can bring this gorgeous species and others back alive!

Summer time is full of fun and sun. We are currently spending some much needed time with family after the passing of an immediate family member. We thank those that have reached out to us to provide their support. It is very much appreciated during this difficult time. As everything, we must press on.

There is good news in the fishroom. Many more of our fish are starting to spawn and we should have many species available going into the fall. Some of the notable species include: Centromochlus perugiae F-1, Hypancistrus sp. “L411” F-2, Micracanthicus (Hypancistrus) vandragti F-1, Tatia gyrina F-1 and Tatia strigata F-3. On the horizon, a few species are close to spawning. These species include: “Centromochlus” schultzi F-1, Corydoras sp. “CW107”, Glanidium (Tatia) sp. “Marble” F-1, Hypancistrus sp. “L136” and Scleromystax sp. “CW147”. Fingers crossed that these species are successful!

In other news, our fishroom is expanding. We are in need of more aquariums and in large quantities. The plan is to add ten 20 gallon aquariums in the next few weeks. Eventually, the goal is to add twenty more grow out aquariums. This will allow us the room for the fry that are currently coming up.

For those wanting a chance to hear about our trips to Colombia, you will get another chance. We will be guest speaking at the October Columbus Area Fish Enthusiasts meeting. Join us for some fun as we travel to Captivating Colombia!  CAFE October Meeting Link

Spring is trying to make its appearance. It has taken longer than normal much like the 2014 season. It appears that shipping conditions are about right. and we are going to ship a few boxes of fish to get our feet wet again (pun intended). We hope to be able to offer additional shipping soon after. Please be aware that we do currently have a full time job so shipping may well be limited for the time being. We will ship when we can.

If you are coming to the American Killifish Association (AKA) Convention or the Greater Akron Aquarium Society (GAAS) All Aqua Show, be sure to take advantage as we can bring fish. Below is an availability list for the events. Please contact us at: jeremybasch@gmail.com if interested. Please take advantage of the free shipping!

Thank you everyone for your patience in regards to shipping. Unfortunately, we have been very busy and unable to ship. We are now looking at starting to ship on certain dates of the year. We have a regular job that does not really allow the time to ship fish at the moment. Once we lock in some dates, we will let you guys now.

Obviously being so busy means we have not been able to update our website as much as we had hoped. This will change but it will take time. So please stay patient as the gears slowly move along.

On a side note, we had a few photos published in the latest Amazonas! This marks the third publication of this great magazine that we have been in. Below are the two photos that were published. And while things are very sad in Venezuela right, we hope that things settle in time like they have in Colombia. One thing is for sure, the area is very beautiful! Be sure to pick up your copy today!

We have returned from Puerto Carreno, Colombia and have a lot to share with you. It was an incredible trip full of spectacular views, rare and unexpected finds. In the coming months, we hope to share with you some of the things we saw and found. Keep in mind that a lot of effort went into this trip. We will share what we can but due to some obligations not only to ourselves but also to the fish that we found, we simply cannot share it all.

We have started to share some of the beautiful landscapes that are Los Llanos on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmazonTropics. Again, we share some of the highlights with you there and on this website. If you really want to see the full extent of our journey, we encourage you to come to one of our talks this year. We will be presenting in Virginia, Missouri, Massachusetts, California and of course, Ohio. If you cannot be there for one of those talks, you will likely still be able to read about our journey in several publications.

Many of you are probably wondering how the fish we collected are doing. They are still adjusting but have settled well. We have only had minimal losses which is expected. We will share more soon. A special thanks to Ted Judy and Hernando Gil for putting our trip together. Until we talk again, please enjoy these videos and do not forget to subscribe to our Facebook page and YouTube channel.