EXOTIC FISH

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 142, 12 March 1938, Page 8 (Supplement)

EXOTIC FISH

A New Fashion

Breeding exotic fish is the strangest and most modern of Birmingham s mass-production trades. On the main Stratford-on-Avon Road at Monkspath stands the extensive breeding station of Shirley Aquatics, Ltd., where each season some 400,000 fresh-water and tropica! fish of 200 different varieties ar reared. They are bred indoors in buildings similar to large green-houses. Here, in long rows of glass tanks, fish of vivid and contrasting colours swim among the bright foliage oi rare aquatic plants. The water is kept at a temperature of 70 degrees by thermostatically controlled apparatus, and is constantly freshened by a system of aeration. The tisli are kept in the indoor tanks until they re snliiciently hardy to be transferred to outdoor pools bedded with concrete, many of which are used for rearing eold-water specimens. Providing foodstuffs for fish and growing aquatic plants is an important part of the station's work, and there is an immense output of water lilies, for which dozens of propagation tanks are reserved.

The firm employs a collector in British Guiana to obtain new varieties of fish and plants: most of the parent fish were obtained from India and British Guiana, and I lie present huge stock has been bred from these. “There is a great demand for tropical fish by owners of private aquaria in all parts of the country,” Mr. H. Tay-

lor, tlie station breeder, told a “Daily Mail" interviewer.

“Little known specimens are often required not only by owners o’ ordinary rock garden pools but by people who have had artistic tankf built in their' living-rooms. In man:big houses special lighting effects havi been arranged over I lie tanks, and it this way tlie brilliant colouring of thelisli is seen at its best.

"To-day many fireplaces have built in aquaria—in fact, fish seem to be displacing-(he old aspidistra.” At the bottom of some of the breeding tanks are layers of special tubes through which the eggs fall, so that the fish cannot eat lb in.’ Certain varieties, however, hatch their egg. in nests onthe water surface.

Goldfish and angel fish head the list for popularity among the household varieties, ami there is always a keen demand for alligators.

“Stocks of alligators are quickly snapped up." the interviewer was (old.

“We could sell hundreds of these animals if we could obtain the supplies from abroad.

"They are not the fearsome things some jwoj.l imagine. Alligators are such slow growers that the question of size hardly enters the question.”

Tlie principal food for fish -and best for conditioning—ecn-'ists of -fleas. The station’s first supply was obtained from China, but now (he “daphnia” are bred at Monkspath in thousands.