AU_Arowana-RG;2544475; said:
Hi. Look, I know that I can't join this meeting (I'm 17 years old. I'm 4th year High school and will soon be going to college. Won't be able to keep any monster setups till I'm done with college and work training. Will only be able to keep either a 23 or 30-40 g aquarium and Live-Bearing Toothcarps/Danios during the 5-6 years before I could start.), but, do you think a certain concern could be raised?
The concern I'm talking about is related the possible UK Channa ban. As you said back in the Barca thread I made, this would seriously put the Channa hobby to an almost grinding halt.
To the concern itself, would the possibility of making a Channa farm/breeding facility be brought up as a topic?
hi mate , there is people in india looking into this , and there is allready farms set up for micro straita and a couple of others , although theese have been set up for the food industry , the can apply for a deseise free status and be allowed to ship into europe. as things stand a whole counrty i.e. india or burma ect could also apply for a deseise free status , but erradicating the deseise from the wild is a near impossable task so very unlikely they would meet the requirments. the ban was postponed for this very reason to allow countries farms and breeders to gain a deseise free status. there are other countries in asia that have large scale farms that are used for the ornimental fish industry and as snakehead become more popular i would expect these to cash in also.
as far as the meeting ,the i.g.l and snakeheadsuk are concerned , none of us have the sort of money needed to get into a venture of that kind , as we are made up of everyday aquarists ect . the best we can hope for as a group is to have all our members trying to breed every species we can to gain captive stocks within europe. just about everyone who is attending the meeting will be interested in breeding channa and parachanna , most people who will attend will allready have a group or indeed in some cases many groups or pairs of fish with breeding in mind , it will also be the perfect oppertunity for a swap of fish , and bring back some fish that you cannot find in your home town , and learn the things that have worked for other people. ultamately the future of channa in the trade for europe will be down to people who manage to breed them and pass on offspring for others to breed.
this is not all bad , take a look at pulchra , since the first few managed to breed them and pass on what it took to breed them ,they are now many available through europe and at a price that is a fraction of what it costs for a wild imported one. the sad part is some will no doubt not be bred before the time is up (barca is an example) and these may well disapear from the trade. also the fact that channa are still being found , new varients turn up almost monthly , in india some exporters know where new varieties live , but getting equiptment to the area to catch them is very hard ,many of these areas are undeveloped or are in unstable areas , and the exporters are just waiting for the area to become stable or new roads build ect to allow them to get to these areas. there is a good chance this will not happen before a ban.
as it stands at the moment i belive between all the hobbiests ,over time we could establish a supply of the following:
pulchra - many people managed to breed
ornatipinis - not yet bred but many breeders have these
blehri - many people managed to breed
gachua - the easiest to breed and many varients are in breeders hands
maruloides- only one person have bred upto now but good signs
aurantimaculata- only one person bred upto now - many in breeders hands
maculata - have been bred and a new supply has been found so looks good
sp.assam - have been bred and many in breeders hands
orientalis - have been bred and many in breeders hands
sp five stripe - have been bred - few in breeders hands
sp green fins - have been bred and few in breeders hands
stewarti - have been bred and fair few in breeders hands and most varients
panaw - have been bred by one person - few in breeders hands
lucius - have been bred - few in breeders hands
micropeltis- farmed for food and aquarium trade
straita - farmed for food and aquarium trade
barca- not bred yet two known pairs in captivity so breeding possable
bankanensis- bred in captivity few in breeders hands
punchata - bred in captivity and fair few in breeders hands
marulia - farmed for the food trade and poss aquarium trade
pleuro - wild caught only would disapear but many in breeders hands
amphibius - none now in captivity and unlikly to be in time
cyanospilos - would disapear
nox- would disapear
diplo- all are wild caught but hopefully enough will be imported to breed
burmanica - would disapear
melasoma - there is a few pairs in breeders hands that have bred
obscura - many in breeders hands and breeding
africana many in breeders hands and breeding
insignis - would disapear
asiatica - few in breeders hands and breeding
i have probably missed some out there or got a couple wrong but that is just of the top of my head , and if things stayed as they are now . a lot of us went out and bought what we could find when the ban was originally due to come into effect . so a lot of peoples stock ,like mine is still fairly young , but next year should hopefully be a good year as far as breeding channa goes ,and i would expect to start seeing a far bigger choice through people managing to breed them.
cheers col
They do however have flights to Aberdeen, Machester and Norwich. 
