In Ecuador - visited a LFS yesterday

[astronatus]

Hi all, we are in Guayaquil, Ecuador on the Pacific coast this week visiting my wife´s family, so i naturally had to go to a LFS to check out the hobby here.

Not much to report, mostly what you would expect, extremely overpriced and low quality filtration and materials, and the fish were mostly pretty normal fare.

I did see a group of large cory cats I havent seen before, with a long heavy black stripe down their backs on both sides.

Lots of angels, guppies, swords.

They tell me in the open air markets there are more types of fish available, and dirt cheap, not that I am buying. Reminds me of an article last year in TFH about the hobby in Thailand.

We also stopped in a fish market to buy some stuff for a party tonight. Amazing the variety of fresh fish, we saw dorados, dolphinfish, tuna, flouners, groupers, and lots of other stuff I wasnt too sure of. Nothing frozen, they just throw some water on it to keep it ´fresh.´ Shrimp the size of both of your thumbs put together, bundles of live crabs tied with baling twine.

I am going to Lima this weekend, and so hope to get to some high end fish stores down there. Ill try and report if I see anything interesting...

Kansas boy in South America

 

[rottbo]

if you meet any importers while your down there let us know i could use some more names on my importers list for central american cichlids

 

[astronatus]

Ill try to do that. How would I find out? Just ask the LFS owners I guess?

Another LFS today, better than yesterday. Some wild caught discus in a tiny tank (15 gal), a number of RTC´s and quite a number of goldfish and koi. They seem to favor goldfish down here.

 

[astronatus]

by the way, ecuador is in SOUTH america, not central america

 

[rottbo]

true i get fish from peru and brazil

 

[redtailfool]

Thanks for sharing.. can you take pics??

 

[astronatus]

Ill see what i can do about pics once i get to Lima. I only have disposable cameras with me, so I will have to scan them once i get them developed.

I found a website, el acuarista, that has lists of all the LFS´s in a particular latin american city. I am going to try and hit at least one monday in Lima

 

[astronatus]

I have been in peru for a few days now, and it is about the same as ecuador as far as fish stores go.

One interesting but sad note, a store had extremely young arowanas, some with their egg sac still inflated. I have always heard that means they killed the father to extract them. And I dont think very many people down here have tanks big enough for an arowana anyway. All the ones I have seen for sale are only 10 to 30 gallons.

 

[rottbo]

doesnt mean that they killed the father you can extract babies with out harming the parent fish

 

[astronatus]

doesnt mean that they killed the father you can extract babies with out harming the parent fish

I hope you are right. I think down here it is more likely someone just caught one in the amazon and took the babies before eating the parent. Hopefully they let the parent fish go, but I just dont seem that much of a conservationist spirit down here, at least not among the local populace.