American Cichlid Association
Convention
Denver: July, 2004


All Photos By Jim Cormier
Click on all Photos to Enlarge
By Jim Cormier

THE CONVENTION:

I'm a relative newcomer to the American Cichlid Association (ACA) conventions. I first attended five years ago in Detroit and have only missed one since then. This year’s convention was held in Denver Colorado, the "mile high city". Unfortunately this one was the smallest convention I've been to but we still had just as good a time as all the others.

This is the annual event put on by the American Cichlid Association with the help of various aquarium society in the United States. The clubs put in a bid to host the next year's convention and the bids are reviewed and voted upon by the BOD of the ACA. This year the Rocky Mountain Cichlid Association in Denver, Colorado won the bid. The format for the event is the same most every year. It lasts four days: Thursday thru Sunday and is held the 4th weekend in July.
The activities start on Thursday.

"Meet you at the bulletin board!"

On Thursday and Friday they always have some kind of road trip to some of the local attractions. Thursday they went to the Denver Zoo and Ocean Journey. On Friday they went to Mount Evans and the Argo Mill. Generally these tours start at 8:00am and have you back by 6:00pm. Thursday and Friday at the hotel the show room, art room and the rental tank room open at 8:00am and the vendor room and manufacturer room open at 9:00am. The Guy Jordan silent auctions start at 6:00pm both nights. Then finally the first of the speakers started at 7:00pm on Thursday. First up this year was Chuck Rambo and was followed by Mike Wise at 8:30pm. At 10:00pm the Apistogramma Study Group and the Cichlisoma Study Group held their meetings. Friday evening at 6:30pm was Alex Saunders and Anton Lamboj followed him at 8:00pm. Anton Lamboj recently completed his research on West African Cichlids and published his results in an excellent book called The Cichlid Fishes of Western Africa. The English version was released just before the convention and they had a limited number of copies for sale. Some of us were lucky enough to obtain it and get it autographed by the author. At 9:30pm Don Conkel was the speaker and the Discus Study Group at 10:00pm. The South American Study Group capped off the night at 11:00pm.

Manufacturer's Room	Vendor's Room

On Saturday the show room, art room, rental tank room, vendor room and manufacturer room open at 8:00am. The Guy Jordan silent auctions and the speakers start at 8:00am as well. Bob Allen was up first followed by Alf Stalsberg at 9:30am. Ad Konings was next at 11:00am and Oliver Lucanus was at 1:30pm with Anton Lamboj finishing at 3:00. Saturdays activities end with the Banquet. Ray ‘Kingfish’ Lucas was the MC and the show results are announced.

There is only one thing going on Sunday and it’s the Auction. It starts at 10:00 am and some times it runs until 2:00am. This one was small so it was done by 6:00pm. The ACA auctions usually pay better than most auctions for the fish you sell; they take the first dollar and then 20% of the rest. I ended up getting 75% for what my fish sold for which is really very good.

That’s a lot of things to do in four days and that doesn’t include the best things to do. The best part of the weekend is meeting other hobbyist, talking about fish and having the opportunity to see and buy some rare fish. The buying of rare fish and the meeting of old friends and new friends is why most of us go to the convention and secondarily to talk about fish and to buy and sell fish. I didn't get to go on the road trip and I was only able to see half of the speakers but I was still very, very busy. I spent most of the time checking out the fish and talking to people.

There are several ways to buy and sell fish at the convention. First is the auction on Sunday. Anyone can enter fish in the auction to sell and anyone can register to buy fish at the auction: not just the people who went to the convention itself. This is a fish only auction and only Cichlids, although they did allow a few catfish this year. As I said earlier the split is pretty good.

Auction Photos

Auction Photos

The second way is the tank rental room. You can rent 10-gallon tanks for $10 each for the weekend and sell fish out of them for the entire weekend. For those of us that are traveling a long way to get to the convention and can’t or don’t want the hassle of bringing your own tanks this is an excellent way to sell fish. The tanks are already setup with the water in them and all you have to do is provide the fish and the bags. You can also rent a tank or two if you are planning to buy a few fish and need a place to hold them until Sunday.

Tank Rental Room

The third way is to set up tanks in your room and post your fish list and room number on the bulletin board. There were only a few people selling out of their rooms this year. One of them was Ted Judy and Neil Lillidoll. They had five tanks set up and were selling West African dwarf cichlids and they had some very nice apisto’s also.

Ted & Neill's room.

A couple of larger fish sellers had setups in the conference rooms. Tony Orso had 40 10-gallon tanks set up and was selling West African dwarf cichlids, apisto’s and some catfish.

Tony Orso's Room.

The other was Hep’s Discus Center. They had 14 55-gallon tanks filled with discus.


Hep Discus Center's room.

THE FISH:

The other big part of the weekend is the Cichlid fish and Art Show. There were some beautiful fish in this show as there is every year. The big winner this year was Pundamillia sp. Crimson Tide by Ken Davis winning Best of show, Best of division B and Class 10.

The winners are:
Click on Class to see the Fish
Class 1 Symphysodon discus
Class 2 Pterophyllum angelfish
Class 3 Sorry . . . we missed this one!
Class 4 Crenicichla sp.
Class 5 Krobia sp. Xingu
Class 6 Cichlasoma ellioti
Class 7 Cichlasoma haitiensis
Class 8 Pelvicachromis taeniatus
Class 9 Paretoplus pin stripe damba
Class 11 Pelmatochromis nigrofaciatus
Class 12 Pseudotropheus frazeri OB
Class 13 Labidochromis pearlmutt
Class 14 Aulonocara albino Eureka
Class 15 Protomelas spilonotus
Class 16 Altolamprologus compressiceps
Class 17 Julidochromis regain
Class 18 Aulonocara dewindti
Class 19 Cyphotilapia frontosa

. . . our photography is getting better . . . please go with our intent!!!

The ACA conventions and all fish conventions are a lot of fun, they really are and with a little planning they don’t have to use up your whole vacation savings. If you are close enough to drive and split the room with a friend you can do it for $150 and for that price it is well worth it.

See you at next year's ACA . . . Ft. Worth, Texas!

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