Performed my water-changes at 6 am. I haven't mentioned that this was something we'd do several times throughout every day. Since we kept the fish in plastic tubs on the boat, they got a little crowded - and conditions would deteriorate rapidly had we not kept up with scooping water from the river with a rope tied to buckets (or in some cases mass changes using water pumped from the river by the boat through a hose). I never experienced many losses due to fish expiring in the tub, but if the water level was kept too high in the tub, in the evening especially, there were fish leaping out of the tubs and onto the deck. We were regularly retrieving these - sometimes difficult since the deck where the fish were kept was a raised layer of wood-slatted material. The fish would fall between the slats - and if not retrieved -would soon begin to smell. An long-handled hook extractor I'd brought to avoid the teeth of any piranha I caught with my rod was pressed into service to assist removing these crispy critters.

We stopped again at Diamante Azul and took many pictures and traded/bartered/donated with the natives of this and other villages. Hand-carved oars and hand-made spears are popular items - as most of us come away with these. My "harpoon" is an iron-tipped 3-pronged with barbs spear that Devon tells me I came out on the bad side of the trade for - since I gave them a new blanket in trade. I hope it gives someone some comfort - and presume I did better when I traded a t-shirt for a hand-carved oar.

We got back to a cove with a path to a stream where we collected previously that we dubbed "mosquito alley". I took a swim while a couple of people collected from the shoreline. Dave, who rowed by in a kayack, told me some big fish (perhaps piranha) were following in my wake. This didn't particularly bother me. I resisted fish-catching for a while until I kept hearing Barry say "Apisto/Pike/etc.", so I took a few swipes at a nice grassy area and took a few of the Apistogramma masken and pikes (which Don and Scott split). I then took a swipe at one "grassy" spot and found a pair of chocolates. I decided I couldn't deal with anymore fish and I returned to the boat.

Back in Iquitos

Jumping back on motor-bike carts again to get about in Iquitos was fun. We all got together for a couple of meals in Iquitos - and as Scott and I had imagined on the boat - the Johnny Walker's were easy to take.

We met Julio Melgar back at Iquitos and he accompanied us to the fish exporters where he identified some of the apistos we had caught as Apistogramma masken.

The fish I brought back that have survived and am keeping include severum, cupido, chocolates, apistos, corys, tetra, festivum, A. nyassa, and a green-spotted ancistrus.

The trip back was rather uneventful thanks to the excellently organized Margarita tours and the Gods that determine airline schedule performance.

There wasn't a single aspect of this trip that I don't remember fondly - and I'm sure I'll return.

It was interesting watching Luis and Dave's experiences in bring some of their fish home since we traveled with them for the first legs of our trip home.

The only blip I had was going through Lima when I was requested to show an immigration receipt (which I had lost, presumably when I had jumped into the Nanay while wearing my belt-pack containing my passport, immunization record, and the aforementioned receipt), I scrambled about and quickly learned I could pay $3.00 for a duplicate.

As far as my fish, they are doing quite well. Since Lee and I had arranged to have our fish shipped home through George and Panduros, I had time to better prepare my fish tanks to house the new arrivals. It turned out that I would have more time than I had expected since there was some kind of screw-up at the airport and the fish weren't shipped until over a week after we had arrived home. They finally arrived last Monday.

Since my basement's conversion to my new fishroom is still stalled, my reverse osmosis unit wasn't hooked up. Still expecting the fish a couple of days after our return, I visited my favorite fish store where my friend gave me a few 5 gallon buckets of RO processed water, and I began adjusting some existing tanks' water parameters. While being apprised of delays in my fishes shipment, I ran out and bought new cartridges for my RO and hooked it up and started continuously cranking out water into a 55 gallon drum. I used the RO to regularly replace some (still in this mode) of my existing water since my municipally processed water is relatively hard and a bit alkaline.

Finally news of the fish shipment arrived via email from George, and Lee and I drove up to George's Shark Aquarium the next morning. While driving, George called me on my cell phone and told me that all was well, the fish were in!

When we arrived, we found a stack of boxes (George's shipment, including Lee's and my 1 box each) totaling 119 boxes. George was rapidly moving and directing placement of the fish. George was moving so fast, except to stop and talk to us for a minute or two, he appeared as a blur.

I really want to thank George for making this a painless experience.

I had a clearly defined plan for acclimating and separating the fish until I opened the box containing one bag that had all my fish in it. I could see several dead fish and there was a stench emanating from the bag when I opened it. I had recently read many articles on acclimating fish but had personally always preferred the drip method. The appearance of dead fish and the stench quickly changed my thinking and since I had adjusted my pH to 6.0, and the temperature of the tank water was only a couple of degrees warmer than the bag water, I decided to get the fish into four tanks as quickly as possible.

The Crenicara punctulatum were all D.O.A., as were a few of the Apistos and a couple Corys. As far as which fish to group in each tank, my original plans were still roughly followed in that I placed many of my "most desirable" in a 40 gallon long well placed tank equipped with power filters that had many hiding places consisting of the plants, driftwood, natural and ceramic caves. The population consists of four B.Cupido, two H.severum (which I believe to be appendiculatus) one very small H.tempolalis about 25 mixed apistos (A. masken and A. biteneatus), a green spotted "pleco" type and about 8 or 9 Corys (the smallest of which have disappeared). Somehow a basket mouth (Acaronia nyassae) also got into this tank, but he is too small to be of much danger as yet, this is my favorite tank.

Into a 20 gallon tank with submerged and floating plants went four A. masken and eight M. mirificus (festivum) and a small planted eclipse tank received a bunch of Corys including the yellow ones that we prized on the trip and eight or nine mixed Apistos. This tank was not set up until the day after I returned and the fact that the filter wasn't biologically active I feel led to the loss of most of the Corys and four Apistos.

A 30 gallon breeder dimly lit tank which has some very rough ceramic and stone hiding places received the balance of my fish which consist of about eight Chocolates, a severum, two A. nyassae, some tetras, characins and one or two cichlids that I haven't positively identified yet. I've lost no fish from this tank (naturally since this was my "least desirable species tank"). It figures the fish would be most comfortable in a bare bones dimly lit tank with no substrate.

Each day for three days I lost two or three Corys or Apistos. This was depressing but I had decided to resist any prophylactic medication as I felt the fish had been through enough stress. The mortality of a couple Apistos and Corys per day didn't change my thinking and all the tanks have stabilized after three days and the fish are doing well.

Webmasters note: This article was originally published in the Mid-Atlantic Cichlid Keepers monthly publication "MACK ATTACK" Oct 2001. Mr. Luckshire is (as you may have guessed) an avid cichlidophile and active member of MACK. To find out more about keeping cichlids and for more information about the Mid-Atlantic Cichlid Keepers organization, visit MACK's webpage: http://www.mackattack.org

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