Dear Fellow Club Members,
I’m Daniel Heifetz. My wife and I have just sold our home in Md and will move permanently to Staunton, Va on October 28! I am a concert violinist and the founder of the Heifetz International Music Institute based in Staunton, www.heifetzinstitute.org. It is a six-week summer classical music festival and educational institute sending it’s most brilliant graduates throughout the year on nationwide concert tours.
Tropical fish has been my childhood and lifelong love and hobby, along with animals in general. We bought a small 8 1/2 acre farm and have two goats, Fred and Ginger, and an Egyptian Arabian horse, Sonata.
I decided to give away my 125 gallon freshwater aquarium setup rather than moving all of it the three-hour drive down to Staunton from Ellicott City, Md. So, I will need to buy a couple of tanks, equipment, plants, and fish on the farm. I would like to focus now on breeding beautiful swordtails, platys, guppies, and sailfin mollies. I would love to receive advice and suggestions!
I send all of you my warmest regards and look forward to making new friends.
Yours,
Daniel
410-746-7395
Welcome aboard.
Live bearers are often overlooked in the hobby. There are a number of species which have been overlooked. I have done Goodeids, they are interesting and can be a bit trickier to breed at first. They hold there own with barbs and cichlids. I still keep a tank of Ameca splenda with a couple of Xenotoca eiseni. I keep Odessa barbs. with them and there are no issues. We have a couple of members that breed Goodeids. I have been tempted to try some Giant Sailfin Mollies (Poecilia velifera).
Look forward to seeing you at the Tailgate.
Rich Trownsell
Welcome to JRAS Daniel! I don’t currently have livebearears but lots of other things. I enjoy the challenge of trying to figure out how to get fish to breed. I hope that when you get you tanks up and running and start to breed your fish that you will join our Breeder Award Program. I’ll be glad to answer any questions you might have about the program.
Marty
Daniel:
Great to have a new member, despite the problems we have had this year.
Depending on the Livebearers you are looking for, there are really good sources out there.
I personally started playing with a few new Livebearers this summer. I found a source for some Tangerine Sailfin Mollies,, very orange!! also, I have gotten a few Red Velvet Cauliflauer swords, that are keeping great color, but only producing about 20% of the hifin dorsals.... so they are relatively expensive when you can find them i think because of the low % of fry retaining the finnage.
I am also on the hunt for good Montezuma Swords,, Greg Sage (Select Aquatics) in Colorado has really good ones.... not any available right now...
Once you decide on tanks (size etc) please let us know on the forum.... someone may have or know of some available.
good to have you on board, and I cannot express enough how soon i would like to see us get back to normal.
best
david