PlanetCatfish.com

I noticed Ian brought up a Breders Award Program in the last Cat Chat. Several years ago a bunch of folks helped me put together a catfish BAP. I am not sure if it is still online here. CSG is welcome to use it how they would like if it is still in existance.
-Shane

Funny you should mention this. I have spent most of today trying to work out if I can combine a catfish BAP, the CSG show sizes and the cat-elog.

It will involve a lot of work, but I think Ian is about to volunteer me for a lot of work anyway with the CSG show stuff, so this might be an opportunity to sort the whole shooting match out and, importantly, keep it sorted.

Jools

Ian ran through some of the aims etc of the BAP on the way to the BCA convention. I think its a brilliant idea.
However I've been a tad premature. The BAP isn't underway yet, BUT!!
Over the last three days C hastatus & C paleatus have hatched and another spawning is on the go. (also a none cat - Danio choprae )

The full details of the BAP will be published in the December Cat Chat, we looked at several programmes that are in operation at club level. The biggest problem is that we wanted to have a system that is internationally workable, with current programmes club members can verify other members breeding claims, with some international members it would be impossible, although it could be done and I would volunteer, but I fear the CSG Treasurer would allow me to fly around the world verifying members spawning successes.

The programme is quite intense and a spawning data sheet or log as we are calling it, has to be completed in three stages over a six month period. Photographic evidence will gain points at each of the three stages and there are bonus points for spawning F1's from original wild stock.

All first time species spawning logs will be published in Cat Chat, further spreading valuable information throughout the group. Permission to publish results will be a prerequisite of entry into the scheme.

Ian

Ian (and others),
I would strongly encourage that an article be mandatory. One, because it is an international program and people's spawns can not always be physically verified (it is not easy to write 2 pages on a hoax spawn that sound believable to people) and two, the spawn does not mean much if the information is not shared. You might consider not making an article mandatory for the easiest spp. No sense filling Cat Chat every month with Corydoras paleatus spawning articles or updates containing photos of someone's Ancistrus fry. My apologies if you guys have discussed these issues already.
Another issue I want to raise is the number of fry. My home club (PVAS) has a minimum number of fry rule (something like 10). I always thought this was silly. If someone spawns a super difficult spp and raises one or two fry, that should be recognized. There are also some spp that just never (or rarely) are going to produce 10 fry. I think these rules encourage people to keep spawning the easy prolific spp. instead of difficult ones.
Lastly, I am not sure what kind of recognition program you have in mind, but my suggestion would be that to qualify as "Master" the hobbyist must have spawned catfishes from several groups. You can certainly recognize someone as a "Loricariidae Master" for spawning 10 pleco spp, but I think "Master" should be set aside for those people that demonstrate the ability to spawn fishes from several groups. Every club has Johnny the Apisto breeder who has received every club recognition award for spawning 25 Apisto spp. That is certainly a great accomplishment, however to my mind, Suzy with half as many points divided between cichlids, livebearers, tetras, catfishes, and gouramis is the real Master Breeder.
Once again I apologize if these issues have already been hammered out. I just wanted to raise some of the common issues I have seen with other BAPs.
-Shane

Shane,

We have taken on board a lot of your comments and to achieve the highest accolade, which is a gold pin, a breeder will have to have gain 2000 points and have bred species from at least 4 different genera.

The rules will state that entering the programme gives the CSG the rights to publish articles, breeding logs and submitted photographs.

Ian

Just to be awkward, I thought Iâ??d join in. Shane and I have talked about this a lot over the years, last time Shane came up with something it was based on what I write below.

For discussions sake, say I can breed Scleromystax, Ancistrus, Rineloricaria/Hemiloricaria and Corydoras to get the same level of recognition as breeding Mystus, Kryptopterus, Dianema and Platystacus? Which would I choose to earn my medal?

It's great to read of people's successes and the like, but wouldn't a BAP be more fruitful if it rewarded people by recognising the relative difficulty of different at least genera and perhaps species.

I was thinking about going through the cat-elog and rating a 1-5 difficulty for reproduction. 1 = Corydoras paletus, 5=Impossible Pseudoplatystoma etc. That could be used in the scoring to encourage folks to try to spawn 2 (maybe Hypancistrus), 3 (maybe Tatia), 4 (maybe Hyalobagrus) level species. I.E. multiply the points.

I'd say that would encourage reproduction attempts to look beyond the usual.

Jools

Hi Jools and other!

Yeap I agree with Jools, easy species should get a low point value, species that have never been bred before should certainly have a higher level;

then genera that have been commonly bred should get lower point compare to another genus from which no species have been bred.

Then again, to replicate spawn from a same species should also get point, it show the true breeder ability rather than the possibility of an accidental spawn which anyway depending of what species it might be should be fairly well awarded points...

my 2 cents!
cheers
Yann

The way I did the 1-5 ratings (It was actually 10 - 50 points) was:

10 points, commonly bred species (Most corys and most Ancistrus)
20 points, uncommonly bred species and genera (Farlowella, Rineloricaria, Hoplo cats, etc)
30 points, rarely bred species and genera (some of the fancy plecos, some small auchenipterids, some erethistids, etc)
40 points, very rarely bred genera and families (Mystus, Batasio, Microglanis, etc)
50 points, genera and families for which no known captive spawnings are known to exist.

Note that a fish would only be a 50 point fish once. So the first aquarist to spawn an Astroblepid sp. would get 50 points. The second through fourth or fifth aquarists would get 40 points. Point values would diminish every year after a careful review of reported spawnings by a BAP Committee. This is because once someone figures out the key, lots of folks will follow that person's footsteps.
This seems pretty fair (to me) as the first person to bred black lancers would get points equal to another aquarist that had spawned say a Farlowella sp, an Ancistrus, and two cory spp. Some may say that it is not a large enough point difference. If you think about it the first spawner of a Chiloglanis would actually only get the same points as an aquarist that had spawned a H. zebra and a Hoplo cat.

My only concern with saying something like "Four genera" is what happens when say Corydoras is split again? Jools' point above is also well made. Not all genera are equally difficult. I would propose for recognition a point system based on the above categories. Something like,
Bronze: 75 points including one 20 point fish
Silver: 125 points including one 30 point fish
Gold: 150 points including one 40 point fish
Grand Poh-Bah: 200 points including one 50 point fish

This way to earn the big titles the aquarist must be spawning progressivly more difficult fishes. Also, to be recognized as the High Priestess of Siluriforms, she will basically have to spawn one sp. from a genera or family that nobody ever spawned before.
Sorry to be so long winded, but I have spent years thinking about this.
-Shane

Shane wrote:High Priestess of Siluriforms

Ah, what a term! I shall bear that in mind for the new breeders pages!

Jools

BTW, I've decided on the points award criteria at a high level.

Firstly, you get points for the quality of the data submitted and for uploading pics. This is a bit binary in so far as you do or you don't but let's say a perfect breeding data set will provide 50 points. It's computer generated at present, so a crappy iphone pic of a fry well get the same recognition as a top notch pic (for now).

There is then a 1-5 genus level multiplier and a 1-5 species level multiplier.

Genus & Species multipliers
5 = First spawn in that genus / species
4 = Second spawn in in that genus / species
3 = Less than 10 spawns in that genus / species
2 = Between 10 and 25 spawns in that genus / species
1 = More than 25 species in that genus species

So, someone with a 40 point spawning report for a species that has never been spawned before in a genus that has had no other species spawned would get 40 x 5 x 5 points. Someone with a 50 point spawning report for a species that has been spawned once before in a genus that has had no other species spawned would get 50 x 4 x 5 points. The new thing is that this is dynamic. So, while the first person to record a bronze cory spawning will get a lot of points, once there are more reports, that total will come down. Over a few years, this will balance nicely to reward all levels of achievement. Don't worry, Planet will do the math.

Jools

It's easy when you can bring your bag of fish to your local club, isn't it? Our club has you write an article if it's a "first-time spawned" within the club. There are bonus points awarded for a "first-time spawned" as well. It gets a bit confusing, because the bonus points are added onto the regular points and there are different tiers of points.

I like this division of points better. Most clubs it's divided by livebearing, egg-scattering, etc. What does a non-CSG member do to join?
Amanda

Amanda, I thought the idea was to have a Planet Catfish breeders award program, not a CSG award program (there already is a CSG award program in place).

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Mats

Correct, this is an extension of the "my cats" & "my aquaria" pages.

Jools

I have been responsible for my local club's BAP for too many years to remember. As Amanda pointed out she brings her BAP fish to the meeting for validation. On PC it really would have to be an honor system. In regard to point values, although it would be a lot of work should we assign specific point values to the fish? Jools, as you suggested assigning a point value from 1-5 makes a lot of sense.

Mark

corybreed wrote:I have been responsible for my local club's BAP for too many years to remember. As Amanda pointed out she brings her BAP fish to the meeting for validation. On PC it really would have to be an honor system. In regard to point values, although it would be a lot of work should we assign specific point values to the fish? Jools, as you suggested assigning a point value from 1-5 makes a lot of sense.

Mark

I don't think it's an honour system, you'd have to be pretty clever to fake all the details and it would take a lot of time. No system is flawless, for example, Amanda and fishkeeper X could be in cahoots and take each others spawning successes to each others fish clubs for points. A photograph of adults, eggs and fry/juveniles is pretty close, veracity wise, to bringing the fish in. Some things just have to be taken in faith, and there will always be cheats, but I go with the view that most people are basically good and that, (phase 2), it will be peer reviewed by our global audience, it should be more robust that even the excellent schemes run by local clubs.

I do not want to assign points to nearly 2000 species! I REALLY do not want to have to review that every year or however often. The points will be dynamic as outlined above. If someone can take the system and find a flaw in it (there are some), then fine, show me the species and I will look into it. Actually, it's more likely to find a flaw in the taxonomic placement than in the scoring - Panaque/Panaqolus is a good example...

All this is academic until I get the data recording pages online.

Jools

jools

this may have already been discussed. however what about verifacation of a spawn through your local fish club. simply have the bap chairman e-mail you a verifacation saying a person has turned in a particular spawn. one of my clubs already has a catfish bap and it would be very easy for that person to verify the spawn and forward that to planetcatfish.

my 2 cents.

kwalker wrote:jools

this may have already been discussed. however what about verifacation of a spawn through your local fish club. simply have the bap chairman e-mail you a verifacation saying a person has turned in a particular spawn. one of my clubs already has a catfish bap and it would be very easy for that person to verify the spawn and forward that to planetcatfish.

my 2 cents.

That works really well if the planet catfish user is a member of a local aquarium club that know their catfish. But some members may not be members of a (recognised) aquarium club all, and/or the members of that club may just about be able to tell the difference between an Ancistrus and a Panaque nigrolineatus, but can't tell the difference between two different forms of Corydoras - one of which is fairly commonly bred, and one that hasn't been bred ever.

If you can take photos of the parents and fry of various ages, I think you've proven that the fish has been bred and you have access to the fish - doesn't necessarily mean YOU bred them, but I'm not sure how much better that gets by asking a (to planet catfish) unknown fish club officer about it...

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Mats

I love this idea! What if your spawning article has already been published on Planet Catfish? Could this count?
Amanda

bronzefry wrote:I love this idea! What if your spawning article has already been published on Planet Catfish? Could this count?
Amanda

That's a good idea, hadn't thought of that. I will take this into account and, if I can, what I will do is allow you to link the article to your breeding report and get points for it.

Jools

Glad to see that this is back on the table. Like Jools, I do not think "physical verification" is a big issue. As he pointed out people can just as easily cheat that system if that is what they really want to do. Besides, if someone was found out to have cheated the system they would be dropped from the program to their eternal shame.
-Shane