POOR LITTLE SODS

The saga of the CFZ ramerizi trundles on. As I write there are three left, and although they still look OK, I would not be at all surprised to find one or more dead in the bottom of the tank tomorrow morning when I come down to the office. We have been doing our research (which we should have done earlier), and it seems that we managed to screw up the pH which on this occasion was pretty much our fault.

However, the entire species in aquaculture seems to be pretty much sinned against, which is something that I never realised. Mary Bailey (the doyenne of the British Cichlid scene) wrote to me yesterday explaining the unpleasant facts of ramerizi life:

"Most Rams are mass produced with no quality control, shipped to the UK in little plastic envelopes with virtually no water, and then decanted into asuccession of different water types in the importer-wholesaler-retailerchain. By the time the aquarist buys them they are ready to pop their poorlittle clogs, and it's a miracle they last that long. A lot don't. I can't keep these mass-produced rams alive myself. They're usually all males anyway, as they keep the females for broodstock, or ship different sexes to different countries to prevent aquarists breeding them and spoiling the market".

I don't know about you guys, but I think that this is absolutely bloody shameful. As I get older I get more to the way of thinking that although they have the answers wrong the animal rights brigade really do have a point.

If we want to be able to continue to have exotic pets and zoos, then we - as a community - are damn well going to have to start policing ourselves, and moreover, we are going to have to start doing it properly before it is too late.