Fish growing contest

[dennysfishroom]

I just noticed that my Herotilapia multispinoza orange form have spawned. At some point in the past we've talked about having a fish growing contest. Are we ready to try? If there is sufficient interest, we could pick up the fry and start growing at the next meeting (Feb). This assumes I get viable fry from this spawn, and we can work out the parameters of the contest before we start. Let me know if you're interested. Denny

[etheonut]

I am most likely to lose at this competition, but I am sure game. Hmmm, what kind of rules do we need to set down?

How do we judge who has won? Do we want to have 'single largest fish' or do we want to do 'largest group of five' or something else altogether? Do we count off if fish are killed? What do other people get when they win? What are we going to do with the results?

Ok, lots of questions that I don't have answers, but here are some suggestions:

Winner should be largest 3 fish (or some quantity) rather than largest single fish. This would depend on how many fish are supplied to each participant.

Fish death should count against the participant, but it should be limited in some way. For instance if we have 'largest 3 fish' and you aren't able to bring back 3 fish for the contest then it counts against you.

As for a prize for the winner, why don't we have a simple $1 entry fee. The winner gets 75% of the total entry fees. The club would get 25% of the total entry fees. This would allow the club to build its account some and encourage people to try. One dollar is just a suggestion to make is accessible for everyone, we could make it more.

Results? Yeah, lots (hopefully) of grown out baby fish. Are they now the propery of the person who raised them? Do they go back to the original breeder? Do we feed them to my bichir? Are they the property of the club to disperse? I don't know.

Time frame?

Kevin aka Lenny

[Sundance]

Count me in!

[pinkrblu]

I'm in!

[sumpnfishy]

I'm in.

[dennysfishroom]

I didn't want anyone to think I'd forgotten you or the contest. It's been 3 days now, and the eggs haven't hatched yet. Normally I'd expect about 2 days, but I did put them in a room temperature tank (probably around 70-72 degrees). The good news is that I can see eye development and spinal cord development, and I've only had about 5-6 fungus. I'll have to see whether they do hatch, and then whether they are big enough by next Saturday to start the contest.

What I'm leaning towards right now would be to have 2 contests running together. One would be for the biggest individual, and the other for the biggest group of 3. Entries in the biggest individual contest wouldn't be able to compete in the group contest, and visa versa. I do have an electronic digital gram scale which we could use to weigh the entries.

I would lean toward $3 for a group of three or $5 for a group of 6 fry to enter the program. Do we want entrants to be able to buy more than 1 group? The 2 winners would get 30% of the pot each, and the club would get 40% of the total pot. The fish would become the property of the individual entrants who grew them up to do whatever they might want with them.

I would think we'd run the contest for 3-4 months which would make it May or June.

These are my suggestions, but we should finalize at the meeting before we commit to enter. It is dependent on the current eggs hatching, too. The fry will be small at best by the February meeting. Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions. I'm not inflexible if the club decides to change the rules. If these don't hatch, we'll probably just roll it to the March meeting assuming they would spawn again. I will have to say that the orange form is a very attractive fish especially when spawning. It stays relatively small, too. Denny

[pinkrblu]

Do we have enough participants to run two separate contests without allowing anyone to participate in both?

[dennysfishroom]

Right now we've got 5 of us interested. My previous post is just a suggestion, and we can change anything we want. My suggestion wasn't that someone couldn't try to win both contests, but only that they couldn't do it with the same fish. Does that help? Denny

[pinkrblu]

Yep, that makes sense. Sorry...I was confused.
Would a ten be enough to grow these out or would I need to set up a larger tank?

[etheonut]

Oh sure, try to get us to turn over our winning recipes and the competition hasn't even started yet!

Kevin

[dennysfishroom]

Still no fry, but everything looks good, just real slow. This is a relatively small cichlid. They probably can start spawning at about an inch and a half. Full adults can probably get to be 3 inches, but that's not common. I don't see any problem starting with a 10 gallon tank. I sure hope we can get more than just the 5 of us. This can be a real eye opener as far as fish husbandry. Denny

[pinkrblu]

Oh sure, try to get us to turn over our winning recipes and the competition hasn't even started yet!

Kevin

And would you suggest bbs? What temperature?

I am going to enjoy this. What a chance to learn.

[dennysfishroom]

I'm sure everyone will have their own formula for blowing away the competition, and it will be a coveted secret as to what methods you are going to use. You do learn a lot going through this, though. Denny

[sumpnfishy]

St. Louis just posted posted their grow out rules. I thought I'd pass them on as a point of reference.
MASI Fish Raising Contest (FRC) Rules



1. Entrants must pay entry fee of $5 per bag to receive fish for contest. MASI will endeavor to have two species – a fast growing easy to keep species and a slower growing or more challenging species – both will be fish that can be kept in community tanks and both will be applied to separate awards
2. Two first place awards, one for each species, will be awarded at the Annual Show Banquet
3. Point totals will be kept secret until the winner is announced
4. Entrants may choose to enter one or both contests
5. Only fish from contest may be shown at each showing. Fish determined not to be from the FRC will be disqualified.
6. Entrant shall show best (largest, most colorful, most spectacular) fish in a flat sided drum bowl or small tank at each showing to compete for grow out bonus points as described in rule 9 below
7. Entrant shall bring in all remaining fish for grow out points at each showing and will be awarded one point per fish not placing. These fish can be brought in bags and shown to FRC chairman when registering the best fish for showing.
8. There will be four showings a year
9. Bonus points will be awarded to the first, second and third place for each species at each showing following standard MASI bowl show sight judging rules – first place 5 points, second place 3 points, third place 2 points
10. The winner will be determined by the person with the most accumulated points for each species over the course of the year. It should be noted that and entrant can miss a showing and still win with the most points.

[dennysfishroom]

Just thought I'd let you know that the eggs hatched today. I also noticed 1 danio in the tank that must have hatched during the last week. That's the first time I've had SA/CA cichlid eggs take 4 days to hatch. I only had a handful of eggs fungus though. They should be free-swimming before next Saturday, so we need to decide whether we start our contest this month with really small fish, or wait till next month when they'd be a little bigger. Think about it, and get back to me before next Saturday. Denny

[Herpchat]

We just started going into the same thing, I would link you into our discussion but it is in a protected thread so only certain people on our forum can see it.

The MASI rules pretty much cover everything you can think of. You all decide on your award levels and such.

[dennysfishroom]

I've never had fish take so long to get started. It appears that I have over 50 freeswimming and available for the contest. If things keep going right, we can probably start at the next meeting. I'll post the rules as we get closer to the March meeting. Denny