I gave a talk at the 1997 Rainbow convention about our program. I'd like to pass on a few of the things I went over. But first let me extend my sincere thank you to all the folks at the San Fransisco Aquarium Society that worked to put on this great event.

What is the Species Maintenance Program? Do we want to make more rainbows available? Do we want to study Rainbows? Do we want to insure the bows are pure? Do we want to insure the bows are genetically healthy? Do we want to find out more about how to keep these bows?

Hopefully the Species Maintenance program can be all of this Since I've taken on this task of trying to develop a program, One question has came up again and again more than any other. WHERE CAN I GET THIS? Followed by I'd help but all my bows are from pet stores. And another very frustrating one. I have this Rainbow but I don't know what it is. It looks like the fish Allen's book. So I think its Kiunga . I bought it at Walmart.

It seems we have a Very Common thread in all these questions. Where are the fish. We know they came in but what black hole did they go into? Many people feel because I'm the Species Maintenance Coordinator I should have the answers to all these question. I prefer the term coordinator over chair because that's what I'm really attempting to do. But without feedback from rainbow keepers, I'm as in the dark as everybody. A couple of years back we did a census of the species in the US. Over 100 species/varieties were noted in this census. But by the time all the responses came in it was sorely out of date. While valuable at the time, it was apparent that many members change fish often. New fish are added old fish are dropped or die.

I felt it was time to go on to Step 2 of the program. That is what I like to call the breeders circle. What we want, What need are people committed to keeping fish long term. This means you plan to keep these fish, breed them and are willing to make them available to other people. We'd also like you to keep a priority in mind. Make them available to other people in the Breeders Circle Program first. But I'll get on to that more later.

It has come to my attention that this still doesn't allow some people to participate. These are the folks with a couple of tanks and just a few rainbows. One is probably a community tank and another possibly a raising tank or hospital tank. Well so you don't feel left out. Here comes and arm twist here. There is something you can do. List your fish in a rainbow publication. Its very easy to make mops available. If you have that extra tank, just move in some fish and a mop and get some eggs. You don't have to have the ability to raise fry and tie up a tank for that time.

I know many folks are afraid to start with anything other than fish, Try purchasing fish as eggs. It really isn't that hard. If you fail, what did it really cost you, 15 or 20 dollars. A mop of eggs is really the preferred way of getting fish. Instead of just a pair you'll have a colony. Often you'll have more than you need and can sell the offspring. Also don't be afraid to get those fish you never heard of. These are often the new fish that are beauties waiting to be published. Or older gems that never received the lime light.

What is not Species Maintenance?

Getting the latest and the greatest, putting them into your community tank until they die of old age. This is the black hole of the hobby. Yes you had the chance to enjoy them, but when you go out to get some replacements the odds are very good that there are no others out there.

Selling your rainbows in your local club. Well that is if you only sell to your local club. You need to get fish to people that breed bows. They need to get into the hands of people that remember the collection locations and keep them attached to the fishes that are passed on. You may think your club has a serious Breeders Award Program, but how many BAP programs pay attention to collection locations. Its charted by genus and species only in almost all clubs. And that is all the other members will remember when there turn comes to BAP. And after everyone has had a chance to BAP the fish its gone. If it is around nobody remembers the location. How many people haven't heard of BAP and Dump? This is a black hole in the hobby.

Not trying the fish you never heard of before. What's so unique about a boesemani or a praecox? Granted they are nice fish but so are over 100 hundred other rainbows. And don't forget the gobies and gudgeons. These are fish that really have some personality. Take a chance , I'm sure you will be pleasantly surprised.

Letting a half dozen people try to supply all of North America with quality Rainbows just doesn't work. They can't keep everything. They can't supply everybody. We have lost species after species because of this. THE FISH AND THE HOBBY NEEDS YOUR HELP!!!

What is The breeders Circle. What we need are enough people keeping each species to insure its long term survivability. I would like to see at least 4 people for each strain working together to keep these fish. Each group needs to work together towards the common goal of seeing the fish is maintained in the hobby. You should be willing to share fish with fellow participants. By sharing the stock we can maintain the genetic diversity of the fish. You may also want to work towards working towards a stable strain. This is a little different than the diversity method but instead you work to reduce the genetic variability of the group. The idea being to establish a successful and stable population that doesn't need the introduction of new alleles to maintain viability. This has been accomplished with many of the wild type liverbearers with much success. But be aware of the danger of this. You can fix a negative allele that dooms the species to captive failure. Or you may breed out the natural colors or body shape leaving the captive stock undesirable. Do not attempt this unless the group is keeping a diverse allele gene pool going also.

Also keep records of water conditions. Record the pH, general hardness, and carbonate hardness. If you have it available measure everything else you can think of. Nitrates, Calcium, TDS, conductivity etc. Did you add any supplements. Alone this may give you very little information, but together we may answer some of the questions that presently are only hypotheses about rainbows.

Does pH effect sex ratios? Does temperature effect sex ratios? Do both effect sex ratios? What species do they effect? Does low calcium levels cause fry deformities? These are questions that we have plenty of opinions about but no data. Alone we'll never get the data but together we can find the answers.

Other things to record are diet. What are you feeding you fish and fry? What numbers of eggs and fry that are produced. Percent of infertile eggs. Sex ratios of the fry. Numbers of parents spawned. It may seem a little matter but when you write it down you can later refer to it. Always record what didn't work. You will learn more by you failures than you successes. Rarely do we really pay attention to what really worked. You can rarely tell what factors made something successful over what really didn't matter. But when the problems occur then you start looking at what you're doing. Then you start trying new things and its these new things that can tell us what is truly required.

I myself have very nasty water that few fish do well in without a little tweaking. As I'm also a plant keeper. I wanted to reduce the work involved in making up change water batches. The plants really preferred soft water than the rainbows needed. So I started mixing in more RO water with the well water. At the time I was also on a big push to raise numerous batches of fry. The plants did great but all the fry were deformed. All with burnt fins and bent bodies. Now many of these fish I still have today and while they don't look to pretty they still produce excellent offspring.

After you've collected all this information, next make it available. Pass on copies of your info to the other people participating with your species. You may have a problem that another participant has been through and knows the solution. Also pass this information on to the Species Maintenance Coordinator. This will then be used in an over all information file on the species. And even better yet use it to write an article for the publication. This will help all members in there efforts to improve their abilities to keep and raise rainbowfish. I needed to throw that in to keep the editor happy folks. But when I do get this information, I will work to format it and pass it on to the membership in general.

Now it may seem I've thrown an awful lot of duties onto folks wishing to participate in the species program. Everything I've outlined here is only possibilities. You don't need to do all this to participate. The basic points are getting the fish and getting them out to other people.

Too long we've relied on to few people to try and take care of these species. The result has been lost species and strains, burned out breeders and too few of fish to go around. If we want the fish, if we care about the fish, if we'd like to continue to enjoy the fish, then we'd all better do a little more.