All-Aquarium Catfish Convention 2022

[andi]

T-Shirts order put in! I got a few extra. Sorry Andi, sizes only went up to XXL, but I am sure we can find you something!

Cheers,

Jools

[Andrew]

Everyone attending the Saturday Banquet, make sure to wear your favorite Hawaiian shirt!

[andi]

Everyone attending the Saturday Banquet, make sure to wear your favorite Hawaiian shirt!

we are going shopping today, that I'll well dressed

Cheers Andi

[TwoTankAmin]

I have never nor do I plant ever to own a Hawaiian shirt. Plus, after years of attending events I have learned that hotel food for these things is usually awful and inevitably cold when served. My practice in the past was when, as a vendor/sponsor, I got meal tickets which came with that, I told the sponsoring org. either to use that portion of my fee as a donation to the org. or to give the meal tickets away to somebody who might use them. Usually they go to one of the volunteers workers who make the event possible or to the spouse of one of the speakers which is fine with me.

At every CatCon I have attended in the past I spent Saturday evening packing up most of the stuff I drag along with me to be a room seller. I am usually up until 3 a.m. to get it done. I need to have it all packed and back in my car to make the Sunday noon check-out time.

Unfortunately, CatCon is more like work than fun for me, for the most part. And I am going smallish this year- 2 x 20L and 2 x 10 tanks. But I will also use a smaller Rubbermaid or two as well.

I normally try to attend one or even two of the presentations, but my experience has been the 3rd floor can be active for selling as long as one is in their room and the door is open.

[Mexnotex]

I have never nor do I plant ever to own a Hawaiian shirt. Plus, after years of attending events I have learned that hotel food for these things is usually awful and inevitably cold when served. My practice in the past was when, as a vendor/sponsor, I got meal tickets which came with that, I told the sponsoring org. either to use that portion of my fee as a donation to the org. or to give the meal tickets away to somebody who might use them. Usually they go to one of the volunteers workers who make the event possible or to the spouse of one of the speakers which is fine with me.

At every CatCon I have attended in the past I spent Saturday evening packing up most of the stuff I drag along with me to be a room seller. I am usually up until 3 a.m. to get it done. I need to have it all packed and back in my car to make the Sunday noon check-out time.

Unfortunately, CatCon is more like work than fun for me, for the most part. And I am going smallish this year- 2 x 20L and 2 x 10 tanks. But I will also use a smaller Rubbermaid or two as well.

I normally try to attend one or even two of the presentations, but my experience has been the 3rd floor can be active for selling as long as one is in their room and the door is open.

Hello Chris,
I sent an email not sure if you have seen it.
Can you send me a PM, please?
M Martin Ortiz

[Jools]

Everyone attending the Saturday Banquet, make sure to wear your favorite Hawaiian shirt!

Or kilt?

Jools

[andi]

Everyone attending the Saturday Banquet, make sure to wear your favorite Hawaiian shirt!

Or kilt?

Jools

I think just pink kilts will be accepted

[bekateen]

Everyone attending the Saturday Banquet, make sure to wear your favorite Hawaiian shirt!

Or kilt?

Jools

Kilts are okay as long as they're purchased at Hilo Hattie's!

See you soon!
Cheers,
Eric

P.S., if kilts were an Irish phenomenon, I would have said buy them at "Hil O'Hatties!"

[Jools]

Perhaps this would do: https://mauiceltic.com/hawaii-tartan.htm - see you all soon, Rob and I meet in Dublin then head out.

T-Shirts and mugs are packed!

Cheers,

Jools

[Andrew]

Maybe a Hawaiian shirt with a kilt?

[andi]

Maybe a Hawaiian shirt with a kilt?

That's it

[Jools]

It could happen!

Jools

[bekateen]

Getting my final affairs sorted ... well not quite THAT FINAL... but anyway, getting my last chores done before tomorrow's flight and I get an announcement that my flight has been moved two hours earlier. Ugh, now I'm getting up at about 3am to be on time. Dang, that did not make me happy. It will be sweet, though, to arrive at CatCon and relax.

Looking forward to seeing you all.

Cheers, Eric

[Jools]

I also suffered some flight chaos out of Edinburgh. However, it resulted in me being on the same flight out of Dublin as Rob Graham (zebrapleco.com) and his son who had flown in from Glasgow. As luck would have it they were sitting behind me.

Imagine our suprise when Steve Grant turned up and sat next to them. What are the chances?

[bekateen]

How fun is that?!

Cheers, Eric

[TwoTankAmin]

I did a very stupid thing. Years ago i received a box with 99 zebras in one big bag. Ultimately there were 3 DOAs with two fish dying soon after they vame out of the big bag into a bucket of clean water. So I fibured it was possible to ship like this.

I bagged 38 L173s in a 19 inch wide 32 inch tall double bag. Losys of air and a bunch of PolyFilter in the water. I bagged them last night about 10 pm. I decided to check on them at 7 tinight and it was a disaster. 27 dead fish and 11 alive. I am am a fool.

I just jacked the second box with fish boxed bagged more traditionally. 5 -7 fish/bag and 8 or 10 inch bages with lots of air. All the fish were fine in those bags. What I had done was all those bags were in a tallish styro and the all but one bag was vertical. Now I have space open and am laying the bags horizonatally but not stacked.

Fortunately I can still bring 19 from TR parents as well as a few true F1 173. I also have some smaller RB line 236 and then a proven reverse trio of 236 from an unidentified European breeder with offspring from both the bachelor male and the pair.

I hate it when I do something dumb and I kill fish. I was trying to do less bagging and instead I created lass fish

[bekateen]

Hi TTA,

I'm sorry for your loss. That hurts, especially when we can know it was our action that led to the problem. I told myself long ago that I will always make mistakes, no matter how long I'm at this. Just learn and move on.

See you soon,
Eric

[TwoTankAmin]

Got home a few hours ago. I had a great time and so did most of the folks there as far as i could tell. I saw all of those crazy flying Scotsmen. I met Eric and Leandro Sousa who is likely the world's foremost expert on the fish of the Rio Xingo which is from where all of my plecos come.

Catfish people are all pretty great folks. I am sorry this may have been the last CatCon.

The best part was in talking with Barbie who, more than any body else, was the one person who made most of what I have done with plecos over the last 16 years possible as well as teaching me some of the more important things I needed to learn. She told me she had met somebody who, when they found out she worked with plecos, suggested Barbie might learn a lot by talking to me. That one made me really laugh. There is nothing I know about plecos or spawning them that she didn't know at least a decade before me and most likely was the one who taught it to me.

I also got to see and talk a bit with Shane Linder and Stephan Tanner. Pretty much the only time I get to see any of these great folks is at an event like CatCon.

Finally, I sold a few of my high dollar fish and managed to make sure some of it ended up helping this site, the Potomac Valley Aquarium Society who hosted the event and IctioXingu. Being able to do that is one of the benefits of working with the fish. It is important that as many of us in the hobby support such organizations because, without them, there may be no hobby.

[bekateen]

Just got home. What a wonderful weekend, seeing old friends again and meeting some (including Shane and TTA) for the first time. This was the best CatfishCon I've ever been to. (Okay. It's the only one I've ever been to also, but it was still the best:)) ).

Cheers and thanks to everyone in PVAS and elsewhere who put it on. Thank you to all the sponsors, especially Plecocaves.com which sponsored my presentation.

Now to look forward to the next Cataclysm and whatever comes after.

Cheers, Eric

#MoreTanksForCairn

[MarcW]

Pleased to hear everyone had a good time, I had the flights, hotel and ticket to the previous CatCon booked but then covid cancelled it, unfortunately I couldn't make this one, but do plan to be at Cataclysm next year, hopefully I'll see some of you there!

[bekateen]

Pleased to hear everyone had a good time, I had the flights, hotel and ticket to the previous CatCon booked but then covid cancelled it, unfortunately I couldn't make this one, but do plan to be at Cataclysm next year, hopefully I'll see some of you there!

Sorry Marc. Your absence was notable and lamented here too.

Hopefully Cataclysm works out for you. Are you aware that for 2023, it's been moved to July to join with the American Cichlid Association annual meeting. It'll be big.

Cheers, Eric

[MarcW]

Thanks Eric, yes I did see that, I've not been to a convention before which isn't exclusively catfish based, as it'll be a bigger event, and less time to wait since it's in July, I'm hopeful that I'll be able to make it.

[Catfish-ologist]

I was able to get home safe with a car-load full of fish.
Also, thanks to Jools for this mug!

I hope everyone else had safe travels back.
-- Sean

[bekateen]

Sean, I'm so glad they allowed me to introduce you before your lightning talk. You (and Cairn) did a bang-up job!

And thanks for the photo.

Cheers,
Eric

[Jools]

A great shot of some of the folks there. From LtR Mark Soberman / @corybreed, Eric Thomas / @bekateen, Leandro Sousa, me, @Shane, @Barbie, Steve Grant / @The.Dark.One and Stephan Tanner / @swisstropicals.

Awesome group of siluri-people but so many others to find pictures of. I'll try to post more as I sort through the pics.

Cheers,

Jools

[Narelle]

As always, I had an excellent time, but it feels like it went by too fast! It's like I blinked and it was already over.

It was great to see everyone! And to get to meet some more of you in person, though I didn't get to say hi to all the PC people that attended.
It's the people that really make (made? ) this convention so great. Great talks and excellent fishes, but getting to talk with like-minded fish people is the thing that always sticks with me most.

There's nothing like a CatCon to get me feeling motivated to do fishy things! I left wanting to dive back into my research projects.

I'll have to see if I can start making it to other fish events. The next Cataclysm probably won't work out for me though, it's the same time as an academic conference I should be attending (the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists).

[Jools]

Here's an even better pic @Narelle.

Jools

[bekateen]

Brilliantly produced video summarizing the future of the galaxy. Thanks Rob!
#MoreTanksForCairn

[Jools]

Epic work by @doctorzeb (Rob)! Also, @PileOfRocks (Cairn) - keep us updated on the struggle. #MoreTANKSforCairn BTW, continuing on a theme my gamertag is DarthSilurus.

Jools

[Jools]

Some images and vibes from the convention on top of the pics posted above.

All the talks were excellent, it was a highlight (among many highlights) for me to be asked to compère Cairn's maiden talk and it was great to see/hear Sean with Eric hosting too. Great idea David Snell / PVAS! Also, I didn't get any shots of the "spree on three" - the late night fish everywhere event spanning an entire hotel floor. You don't get that in the UK! So, please do add some if you have any.

Cheers,

Jools