And the winners of the 2011 TAS Angelfish Show are...

Class 1 Wild and Wild Type
1st - Frank Cowherd
2nd - Christian Moscarell
3rd - Frank Cowherd

Class 2 Dark Locus Phenotypes
1st - Frank Cowherd
2nd - Frank Cowherd
3rd - Gene Guido

Class 3 Single Locus Phenotypes other than Dark
1st - Lisa LaFrancis
2nd - Gene Guido
3rd - George Goulart

Class 4 All Other Phenotypes
1st - Lisa LaFrancis
2nd - Lisa LaFrancis
3rd - Gene Guido

Best in Show - Frank Cowherd

Congratulations to all winners, and thank you to all participants!
Photos of winners are backed up in multiple places and will be shown at the next TAS meeting.

Meantime - right next to the TAS table was this wonderful little display aquarium that got raffled off - a 27 gallon cube.  This photo doesn't do justice to how nicely it was decorated and how pleasant it was to have next to the table these past few days.

Saturday

I was so busy at the TAS table that I didn't have a chance to get away to look around much.  Chuck Hawks helped out with the Children's Tank Decorating Contest, sponsored by Discus Dan.  The winner of the contest got to keep the aquarium, complete with fish.  And to sweeten the deal, after the winner was announced, all the rest of the kids got to keep their tanks too.

Meet David Ramsey, a new member of TAS, and one of the angelfish exhibitors this year.  David took photos of all the winners in the TAS show.  Photos of all the winning angelfish will be shown at the next TAS meeting. Thank you David!

Lisa LaFrancis's black lace angelfish won the ACA Best Angelfish, selected by ballot, and therefore perhaps better called The People's Favorite.

Meet another of our new members, Frank Cowherd.  Frank took Best in Show in the TAS Angelfish Show with his black angelfish. 
The trophy looks much better in reality than in this photo - a lovely golden angelfish.

Judging is done!

Here are our two happy judges - happy that they finally finished the job.  A bit of a challenge because the angelfish show tanks were in two completely separate parts of the room, and fish from our four classes were scattered randomly throughout. From left to right, Dave Hlasnik (judge), Lisa LaFrancis (TAS secretary and judge trainee), and Steve Rybicki (judge).

Friday - here come the judges

Here I am with Francine Bethea, President of Capital Cichlid Association, standing behind me, and Chuck Hawks on my left.

Early afternoon, our show judges, Steve Rybicki and Dave Hlasnik arrived.  Here's Steve chatting with Gene Guido, TAS member who gets kudos for entering the most fish in the show - 7 entries!

And here are Dave and Chuck talking about, of course, angelfish.

Thursday evening: Charles Hawk's talk on wild angelfish

What a great presentation! Excellent photos of wild angelfish species, and great talk on how to tell them apart!  Here's Chuck wrapping up the presentation.  With the heat wave, the temperature in the room must have been in the 90's.  The conference rooms and the hotel common areas are sweltering.  Yet, Chuck kept the audience rapt, and showed great energy and enthusiasm despite the heat.

The first photo looks like there is no audience.  But that is because no one likes to sit in the front rows.  Actually, the talk was quite well attended.  Here is the audience.  Because of the heat, Chuck tried to wrap up the talk early before the audience wilted too badly - but they still kept him for a half hour of questions and answers.  Way to go Chuck!  And thanks so much for representing TAS so well!

Thursday - Here come the fish

Show room - fish arriving in buckets...

by hand cart...

in boxes...

Memories from ACA 2010 - meeting Frank Grainer

One of the highlights from last year was meeting Frank Grainer, one of our founding members.  Frank and Ted Santos were our judges for the 2010 TAS Angelfish Show.  Frank invited us out to his house for a BBQ on Saturday.  Here he is greeting us at his driveway.

And inside we were greeted by his arawana.

In his basement fish room, in addition to angelfish, he is working on genetics of swordtails, live bearers.

A fish room we would all love to have - fully set up for automatic water changes.

Here's one of our winners from 2010 - one of Chuck Hawk's angels.  This is posted fyi, and to for me to make sure I know how to put photos into the blog entries.

Launching this blog

Welcome to my new blog! I thought it would be fun to be able to give real time information and updates during the 2011 TAS Angelfish Show at the ACA Convention.  I have never done a blog before, so this is new to me.  This is just a test post as I figure things out.