Hello from Fort Myers, FL

Hello everyone,
A new friend of mine told me I should visit this site so here I am. I own an aquarium store and I'm also a big time hobbyist. In my personal collection I prefer wild livebearers but I honestly like almost all fish. I currently keep a nice selection of goodeids and some fancy type swordtails and platies. I enjoy working with some members of the American Livebearer Association as we try to develop new fancy types of livebearers.

As you can imagine there is a whole assortment of native and exotic fish here in Florida. I often visit different parts of the State to sample and collect species and document what I've found. I share a lot my information with the local Fish & Game in an effort to map the spread of exotic species and see if there is any impact on native populations.

I'm always willing to help someone locate a "must have" fish so feel free to message me if you need any help.

Joe

  Yay another Livebearer person! My tanks are mostly filled with guppies and platys    Do you have any pictures of your fish?

Welcome!!

Welcome Joe

MorganEA wrote:   Do you have any pictures of your fish?

Site says I must wait 7 days

Welcome to the fishbox! Love livebearers! PM me a link and I'll share for ya.

joefish72 wrote:

MorganEA wrote:   Do you have any pictures of your fish?

Site says I must wait 7 days

Hi Joe,

You can also do [*img]web address of your image[*/img](remove the stars) and it will allow you before the 7 days.

Will

Here is one I developed, the only fish I can claim I did all the work on.
Chainmail Molly (no longer have this line) each scale is outlined in black makes it look like chainmail armor.


Hi-fin blue moon mickey platy


My award winning female brick sword from ALA 2013 she was over 4"

Wow!

Xenotoca eiseni


Chapalichthys pardalis
[/URL]

Alvarezi swords


Wild sailfin molly (Florida)

Hi joefish72, do you have a website ?

Welcome to the forum!!

joefish72 wrote:Hi-fin blue moon mickey platy

Gorgeous strain. Have you seen them with colored fins?

joefish72 wrote:My award winning female brick sword from ALA 2013 she was over 4"

How old was this lady? huge fish!

I'm a huge cichlid fan, but must say that your fish are awesome! Welcome to the box!

And as a personal question to you, have you ever fished for the feral cichlids in the drainage systems down there that I have read about so many times in the past?

Welcome to the box!

I am also curious if you've fished for feral cichlids. Have some really nice specimens there.

     

Welcome aboard! On college break about a hundred years ago, my roommate and I went to his home in Fort Myers, and spend just about the whole time trudging through the marshes, swamps and canals. Brought back wild sailfin mollies, mosquitofish, and American flagfish to our dorm in Virginia.

What a great trip!

I can imagine you have a great life there with all the water you can explore!

[quote="joefish72"]

Chapalichthys pardalis
[/URL]

Love love goodeids...this one is one I haven't seen. Very nice. What is the right nickname...Leopard goodeid or polka-dot splitfin? Both?

And welcome to the forum

Hi Joefish<
Glad to see you made it on here!!! Welcome, and as I said on the phone the other day this IS the place to talk fishy things with fish freaks up here in Washington. Nice pics, great Goodieds. I am the Livebearer queen on here and keep 3 species of goodieds with more to come this spring.
keep the pics comin"
How about a store front shot???

fishNAbowl wrote:Hi joefish72, do you have a website ?

Welcome to the forum!!

Yes,but not published yet, I am my website designer, shame on me.

MRTom wrote:

joefish72 wrote:Hi-fin blue moon mickey platy

Gorgeous strain. Have you seen them with colored fins?

joefish72 wrote:My award winning female brick sword from ALA 2013 she was over 4"

How old was this lady? huge fish!

Yes but the fins are a dull red, not blue

The big swordtail was about three years old and was the result of an experiment where I separated out siblings and kept a few females apart until they were almost 2 years old. those females grew much larger than the sisters from the same brood that were allowed to breed at a young age.

lloyd378 wrote:I'm a huge cichlid fan, but must say that your fish are awesome! Welcome to the box!

And as a personal question to you, have you ever fished for the feral cichlids in the drainage systems down there that I have read about so many times in the past?

Thanks, and yes I love to play in the canals and ditches, since I share my results with local authorities it allows me to get into places most people don't go to. There are a lot of fish to be found in this area both cichlids and native species. I have a breeding pair of mayan cichlids I caught on hook and line.

cichlid-gal wrote:

joefish72 wrote:

Chapalichthys pardalis
[/URL]

Love love goodeids...this one is one I haven't seen. Very nice. What is the right nickname...Leopard goodeid or polka-dot splitfin? Both?

And welcome to the forum

I use Leopard goodeid but I try not to use common names if I don't have to. Nothing wrong with common names, just prefer to be a little more exact.

Livebearer wrote:Hi Joefish<
How about a store front shot???

Holy cow, that means something different where I come from. I'll post something, but it is a very simple little store, no grand facade.

Welcome to FishBox! Those are some mighty fine fish you have!

Man, I can't wait to see the Mayans straight from the canal!!!!! If you ever get extra cichlids in the canal, let me know. If love to buy it from you
( shipping+ time $ ) included just to say that I have a wild caught fish not from it's native habitat.....

Glad you joined the box!

You have to see the irony of someone from florida being on a Washington fish forum... washintonians must be a likable group lol

Chiisai wrote:You have to see the irony of someone from florida being on a Washington fish forum... washintonians must be a likable group lol

Gotta love it. We love fish all the same.

Welcome aboard Joe.

Joe,
since there is not section on this board for "Livebearers" anymore I thought I share this exciting news...here
I had babies yesterday!   
My Ataeniobius toweri (blue-tailed goodeid) hen had 6 fry and man they are HUGH!!!! 5/8" long..... These young are the biggest ever & from 2 different unrelated fishes I've aquired in the last 2 years. Very cool,,, LOVE THE goodies like Cichlid_gal said above. I would post a pic here but really have to be shown how as I've tried and gave up.
Don't be modest Please post a pic of your store front. I'm sure we'd all like to see as alot of us spend our weekends cruising around to different fish stores in this area just for the heck of it! Thanks Joe! Welcome you bring the in sunshine on here!   

Very cool, I just got a drop of fry from my ilyodon lennoni, that I got at the convention last year. It took so long I was giving up hope and of course that's when it happened.

As for not having a livebearer section, for shame....for shame....
I feed baby cichlids to my belonesox, just trying to keep things balanced   

Hey Joefish72,
Are you still out there???
Wanted to know if your store keeps native fishes from the S.E. U.S. areas???
More pics please>>>>>

Yes, I keep some native species in the store. I almost always have Lucania goodei, Jordanella floridae, Heterandria formosa, Lepisosteus platyrhincus. In the summer months I have Elassoma evergladei which sell out as fast as they come in.

My first store born hifin lyretail swords:

I was able to count 52 fry in the picture, now I can't wait to see how they grow out.

Mom came in gravid so there is no telling what will come out in the mix, two fry already look like they might be wag. She will be put in with some proper green swords and I'll hope for some nice green fry in a few months.

NICE!!!
I'll keep You posted on how the meeting on native fishes goes!!! Oh well if you check the G.S.A.S. website it will fill you in.
Kat's a great, knowledgable gal.
I like those pygmy sunfishes
save some for mEE
LIVEBEARERS RULE!!!!!!