Ted’s Fishroom

A Visit to

Phil and Jan Benes’

Fishroom

 December, 2007

The Benes’ are active members of the Greater Cincinati Aquarium Society (GCAS), the American Cichlid Association (ACA), the Federation of American Aquarium Societies (FAAS) and other aquarium orgaizations.  I have gotten to know them through the ACA, and had the chance to visit their fishroom when I gave a presentation to the GCAS in December.  There are aquariums all over the house, but most are located in the basement.  The basement is a finished space with a rec room and seating area, around which there are several display aquariums.  One of these tanks is a Lake Tanganyika cichlid tank with a colony of fish consisting of various species.  The showiest fish in that tank is a group of Opthalmotilapia nasuta, of which this is one of the dominant males. 

 

The Lake Tanganyika display is the upper tank on the rack pictured above.  The lower tank has a redtail catfish that Phil and Jan have had for a long time.  There are several large aquariums around the house with fish that are surprisingly old.  The Benes’ comit to keeping their fish for a long time, and have even moved several older fish from one house to another, even from state to state.  What looks like a smaller tank insode the larger tank is actually a planted tank behind the cichlid tank.

This planted tank has a school of beautiful Barbus denisonii.  Phil keeps them in a community with other larger tropicals and relatively peaceful cichlids, such as Geophagus sp. ‘Tapajos’.

The fishroom is located at one end of the basement.  The room is relatively small, but packed with tanks and fish.  I really like Phil’s use of space.  The larger tanks are postitioned side-out, and there are rows of smaller tank positioned end out.  The room is well organized with a consistent color scheme and rack style.  Here are a few pictures of the room.

 

There is also a work station with storage, a sink and small fridge.  This area is pretty tight, but at least Phil has given himself the space to work.  I have been in many rooms that workspace has been overlooked, and is usually missed.

Phil keeps and breeds several species of rainbows.  One of the ideas I came away with was using a row of 1-gallon jars as hatcheries for ‘bow eggs.  This makes a lot of sense with regards to space utilization.  The jars are filtered with small sponge filters.  I liked it so much I set up a row of my own in my fishroom.

Phil’s collection of rainbows is the second-best I have seen.  Numero uno belongs to Gary Lange, but that is to be expected (since Gary is the ‘bow man!).  Here are some of the species in Phil’s collection.

Bedotia sp. ‘Marojejy’ (a Malagasy species)

Glossolepis dorityi

Glossolepis incisus

Melanotaenia preacox

Melanotaenia splendida rubrostriata

Melanotaenia sp. ‘Batanta’

Melanotaenia trifasciata ‘Goyder River’

Melanotaenia trifasciata ‘Wonga Creek’

Phil also keeps a wide variety of rift lake cichlids.  His interest seems to about equally divided between Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika.  Phil has some of the nicest sunshine peacocks I have seen, and well as some of the more ‘oddball’ species such as Bathybates minor and a Rhamphochromis species.  Here are some of the lakers.

   

   

The tanks are filtered primarily by air-driven sponge filters.  Phil uses two small regenerative blowers to provide the air.  The delivery system is standard pvc with needle valve ports, suspended from the ceiling. 

Phil has a reverse osmosis unit in another small room adjacent to the fish room.  There are also reservoir barrels in the room for storing and aging water.  Phil uses the same method of draining and refill that I do… nothing special.  A siphon to drain and a hose from the reservoir barrels or tap to refill the tanks.  Phil’s room is small enough that doing water changes like this is not all that time consuming.

 

Most of the tanks have tight fitting glass tops that help control humidity, but he also has a dehumidifier.  This machine also prodives a bit of heat to the room.  The room is also heated by a heater in the wall, which can be seen in the background behind the dehumidifier in the image below.

I was pleasantly surprised to see so many fish from west Africa in the fishroom.  There are some interesting cichlids from that region, including this Etia nguti, Benitochromis finleyi and Pungu maclerini, a sponge-eating species from Lake Barombi Mbo, Cameroon (which will thrive on other foods than sponges… thankfully).

One of Phil’s older fish that he has moved from place to place is this large Distichodus sexfasciatus.

Phil also keeps a number fo different Synodontis species.  He has several from Lake Tanganyika as well as from west Africa.  The first image is a species from Lake Tanganyika I had not seen before, S. filamentosus.

 

Some of the west African catfish in the collection include S. pleurops, S. angelicus, S. notatus and this big brown catfish that we could not positively identify.

  

This catfish looks like S. decorus, but it is not.  It is either S. congicus or S. nummifer, but I am not sure which.

Just in case you were thinking that Phil is biased towards African cichlids, here are a few fish from Central and South America.  The first picture is a bruiser exCichlosoma istlanum and the second shows a Heros sp. ‘red shoulders’.  Phil also keeps some dwarf cichlds from the Dicrossus, Apistogramma, Laetacara and Microgeophagus genera.

Thanks to Phil and Jan Benes for their hospitality, and for letting me tour the fishroom.  This room has one of the largest collections of different fish species I have ever seen, and it is a credit to Phil’s love of fish.  I would also like to thank Phil and Jan for their dedication to the hobby, as is evidenced by their involvement with the CGAS, ACA, FAAS and other hobby organizations.  I look forward to the next opportunity I get to spend some time with Phil and Jan.

If you would like to leave a comment about this tour, please feel free to do so.