LOL British meeting 18/08/2006

[Mike Ophir]

I third the motion for a store on the East Coast. The pressure is building, Emma!

Mike

[Martin Thoene]

I've never seen that many striata at one time. Very cool!
And that garra.....

I've got a really cool pic of that Panda Garra Jim, plus lots of other stuff......just got to wait

Martin.

[Martin Thoene]

So many of the loaches we keep would be so much better in large shoals like this. Emma's going to inspire a lot of keepers. How I would love to have 20 striata instead of the three I have now... And darios, and clowns, and kubs... Urgh.
The concept of keeping numerous medium sized tanks for species-only stock is really rather good.

Yes Mark, good point. I think the impact of the shop is that they have masses of a species in a relatively small, spotlessly clean tank (because it's part of a large system), so that gives visual impact. However, we're used to seeing fat and sassy pictures from people's home tanks. What we're not used to seeing is such fish en-masse in a dealer's tank.

I did say to Emma that she might maybe need to remember the point of running a shop is to sell fish, not to feed them up for months and months That dedication to excellent husbandry is what sets the shop apart though. You know you're buying beautifully cared for healthy fish.

Maaaaaaaaaaan.....I could have spent so much money in there

Martin.

[Eyrie]

I agree! All your hard work and dedication shows head and shoulders above other lfs. You and Steve deserve all the high praise's we give you. Now just move your store up 'north'

Graeme.

Agree with Graeme - you can't claim to be "throughout the UK" when there's nothing north of York! Newcastle is do-able, Edinburgh or Carlisle would be better

Looks like a great time was had by all.

[Mad Duff]

First of all I apologise for not posting on this thread sooner but I was at a wedding from 9:30 am till 11:30 pm yesterday and still a little fragile .

I have got to agree with all the comments about Emma & Steve's shop, it is without doubt the best fish shop I have ever visited the number of species of all fish not just Loaches and the quality of the fish is unbelievable.

I did actually comment to Graeme on our way back and said that I may well stop buying fish locally and just visit Emma's shop 2 or 3 times a year, in fact my wife was so impressed with my stories from the day we are planning to travel down in October (I wonder if I can squeeze a couple more tanks in by then ).

I was really annoyed with myself for forgetting my camera , I cant wait to see all of Martins photos .

It was certainly nice to put faces to names and I couldn't have asked to meet a nicer bunch of people .

[Emma Turner]

I agree! All your hard work and dedication shows head and shoulders above other lfs. You and Steve deserve all the high praise's we give you. Now just move your store up 'north'

Graeme.

Agree with Graeme - you can't claim to be "throughout the UK" when there's nothing north of York! Newcastle is do-able, Edinburgh or Carlisle would be better

I believe there are 'plans' to do just that at some point, but unfortunately they won't be run by us, so I can't guarantee what they'll be like or more specifically what the loach selection would be like. We've already moved 100 miles north-east of where we used to live! I think you should all move down our way!

Thank you again everyone for all your positive comments .

Emma

[Mike Ophir]

How about this for negotiating......I will provide you with free cat litter, grape juice and notebooks for a lifetime, and you move your store to Massachusetts, USA. lol

Mike

[Jim Powers]

Now I could deal with that...as long as my friends continue to live in Mass. and I visit a couple of times a year.

[LES..]

I have uploaded my Marge clip to google:
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?doc ... 4716189517
That should be a lot faster for everyone to download although the quality may not be so good...

[Dr. Momfish]

good heavens! that's one big fishy vacuum cleaner! interesting how the black areas have light stripes in them now.

[shari2]

It's lovely to see you all I'm sure a good time was had by all.

...and I fourth the idea of Emma and Steve moving the store to the east coast, USA !

[Graeme Robson]

I have uploaded my Marge clip to google:
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?doc ... 4716189517
That should be a lot faster for everyone to download although the quality may not be so good...

Nice one, Les!!

[Mad Duff]

Marge is now on Google, think of the visitors Emma will be getting now Marge has gone Global .

Nice one Les

[Emma Turner]

Thanks Les, that's very cool! Marge probably has no idea of just how special she is.

Emma

[LES..]

It's a shame Google shrinks the video, the full resolution clip shows a lot more detail. There is a particularly nice little wiggle that Marge does with her front fins about 50 seconds into the video but my favourite bit is just at the end where she squeezes through the gap between the pieces of wood.

I still don't think that a video could ever do justice to Marge. Emma's aquarium is so large it is difficult to appreciate Marge's real size, those barbs are some of the largest I have see so you can't judge scale with them. The best point of reference is the Java Fern being moved around, those are big mother plants, not small cuttings!

Much as I appreciate the kind comments, I think far more credit needs to go to Emma for inviting us to her home and providing an example of how to care for these beautiful fish.