Window Farming

I stumbled across this inspirational video and link about window farming that I had to share with you.   There is no end to what the creative mind can produce.  So no more excuses, even if you have little or no soil to plant in where you live you can still grow your own food (for almost free).  Watch and find out how!

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Front Pack Carriers the Truth

OK here it is. I am sick of seeing this photo being plastered around trying to make parents feel bad for wearing their baby close.

This is MY photo, and my intentions were education, not judgement. My intention was to show there is a better option. It has been two years since this photo was taken. The better options are more widely known now, I really dont think this photo is needed anymore.

If I had my chance to do this photo over again I would. I am ashamed of what this photo ended up becoming. I am not proud. I have stayed silent in the hope that one day it would stop. One day the judgement on others parenting choices would stop. I am truly sorry for anyone who has been hurt through this image.

Would I make this comparison photo again. Yes I would, but my slogan would be different. Maybe I would say love your baby anyway you can. Hold them close, kiss their head, smell in their beautiful scent. Maybe I would say: Has your child out grown their carrier? Want to still carry them? There are other options.

What are my thoughts on front pack carriers:

• Personally I would not use one. I have not found one that is comfortable for me.
• There is a history of hip dysplasia in my family. So I would not want to take the risk with my babies hips. The issue can be so mild it might not be diagnosed as a newborn, it is better for me to hold my baby in a position that creates a better environment for their hips to develop properly.
• There is a history of spinal problems in my family, so I will do everything in my power to help support the developing spine of my baby.
• And really up till about 3 months of age there is not a great deal of leg dangling going on in these front pack carriers. And even once there is, it really is not that big a deal.

 THEY ARE OK TO USE.

This is my Newborn (4.2kg at birth) in the Britax carrier. Her legs are not fully supported, but they are supported well enough. If I had no other choice I would use this carrier with my newborn. My biggest worry was her floppyness in the carrier, I just didnt find the head support as good as it is in other carriers.

Here is better head support

Next is how the Britax looks at 3 months. This is where I start thinking the carrier is no longer as supportive as I would like. Would I scream from the rooftops for everyone to burn their frontpack carriers? NO. They are still useful, and if there are no underlying medical issues that are known or not known they are perfectly safe to use.

PLEASE keep carrying your babies close. It is a marvelous thing for you to both share together. It is fantastic for bonding, for their brain and nervous system development. It gives you two hands to get stuff done. Holding/wearing your baby close is a special time, dont give it up just because you cannot afford a different carrier. Love your babies, squeeze them, hold them, kiss them, smell them and most of all enjoy them.

If you want to see other options, have a look at my series on carriers here.


And just for fun here is that same little boy still being worn.

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Ducklings

Our first ducklings. Isnt this one a cutie.

We decided we would do a bit of an experiment with this broody duck. Since we have chooks who do not go broody and we have ducks who are broody all the time. We popped some chook eggs under the mummy duck then a couple of duck eggs later on. All went well till right at the when every baby chick died in shell. They were fully formed and grown but something went wrong. After a bit of research we think that since the mummy duck got wet then sat on the eggs a bacteria got in and eventually killed the little chicks.

We did though get two very cute ducklings from her. She was not a vey good mum though. Wouldnt call the babies in at night or get them out of the rain. Will try an avoid brooding with her again.

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Pilgrimage for a job Interviews

My job search has resulted unsuccessful so far. Should I be concerned? Well, Im not. I have been applying to positions I know I could be a great ad to the companies out there, but Im still to write my thesis, I suspect no one is going to employ me before this literary burden is done and over. Nevertheless, let me share a personal view on the NOs I got through template rejection emails - Theyre the ones who missing on a great employee!

I am eager to get my first interview, and as part of that process it comes natural to me the need to acquire some interview skills. Honestly, I am more and more inclined to believe that all this being picked for a job is but luck, but in order to be lucky you need to make yourself visible to others. Then, and only then can you get lucky.

Doesnt this job searching and applying resemble a nearly-juvenile Friday night in a discotheque? Nice words, pitch properly, dress accordingly, sell yourself and pray to be seen. Yes, applying for jobs is just like that!!!

***

This post is part of a series of articles I posted under the pilgrimage for a job tag. You can find the previous articles by fetching the toxic up there on the left side.

I couldnt close this first chapter without going through what I found of juicy and pedagogical concerning interviews. How to behave, what to say, what not to say, where to look, what are they made of. These and other resolute questions always populate our minds when we are shortlisted for an interview. Since I am really inclined to abandon academia and join the industry (fingers crossed) most of the pages I have searched point out towards an exit from academia. I hope you find interest in all this information I collected.

The Dos and Donts of interviewing for a non-academic role

1. Do make eye contact, have a firm handshake, smile and stop looking at the floor 
The first exchanges of energy are crucial and if one comes out as confident and friendly, chances are that they are going to like us a lot more. Lets make it easy for them to like us then. And first impressions are extremely hard to change. :)))))))))))))

2. Bring up your market research notes
Interviewers hate unprepared interviewees. You dont want to come out as lazy or not knowing exactly what youre there for. Research the job role, research the company, research the market youll be working in. The more you know the more confident youll be and they will sense that straight away. See it as a company meeting where youve taken your notes to share with your superiors.

3. Maintain a professional composure throughout
Regardless of whatever approach you interviewer stands for, you are the one under scrutiny so dont relax to the point of losing your professional attentive attitude. Yawning, vulgar jokes or simply thinking it is for you to spread legs and cross arms, it is totally unacceptable.

4. Ask questions. They need you as much as you need them.
Have some dignity for gods sake! They are looking for your kind of talent; this is not X-factor where Simon Cowell offends everyone, babbles whatever crazy adjectives he thinks of and is applauded by millions of people in need of being entertained. This is going to be your bosses and colleagues. You need to know them beforehand, so make use of this opportunity before you sign for some guys who couldnt care less about your needs.

5. Follow up notes are not kissing ass but polite reminders.

Mention something particular in your follow-up note. Try mentioning some points in common between you and the interviewer, but dont lose your grip thinking youre old time buddies. Just make sure he will remember you for something good.

Source: [1]

***

Keys to overcome a telephone interview job successfully

1. In this case basic common sense applies. Avoid public areas where noise can be a constraint.

2. Be prepared and open wide your CV to answer straight away to any of the key questions on your experience and skills.

3. The way you answer questions is ever more important than in a face-to-face interview. Here, mistakes cannot be made inconsequential with a smile or a gesture. Listening can help you hit the bulls eye later on by answering properly to a tough one.

4. Its all about your tone of voice when all else is discarded. Image is not present in a phone call, so in the end you will also be assessed for your safe and constant tone of voice.

5. And yet again the follow up. Track the call with an email by thanking the opportunity and reinforcing your motivation.

Source: [2]

***

What one should be asking at a job interview

Ask about everything you find pertinent. Think outside the box. If you are going to ask just for asking then please keep quite. Focus on the good and the bad of doing such job, if there will be training, an example of a typical day in the role, if there is way to progress and climb up the ladder, why do they think theyre good a company for you; ask about their mission, values and culture. As you see there is a lot to ask about!

***

This is what I found for myself and for you also. Make sure you read Liz Ryan post on LinkedIn entitled "Its an Interview, Not an Interrogation", it is quite interesting and will reduce your panicking. And if you are over 40 by any chance, please make sure you read Bobby Edelmans article "Over 40? How to sell yourself at a job interview", everyone alive will be 40 one day, better get ready because the job market is a cold b...

Thats it! Come back this Friday to help me blow the candles of the 5th anniversary of The Toxicologist Today. 5th!!!!!! Awesome.


[1] Five dos and donts during a non-academic interview, White consulting, [http://www.whiteconsultingllc.com/five-dos-and-donts-during-a-non-academic-interview/], last visited on the 24th of August 2015, last update unknown.

[2] Keys to overcome a telephone interview job successfully, First aid for health care, [http://firstaidforhealth.com/keys-to-overcome-a-telephone-interview-job-successfully.html/], last visited on the 24th of August 2015, last updated on the 11th of January 2015.

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I ♥ Wednesday

Today I ? my biggest boy

Wednesday is going to be the one slow day of my week this year. So I have decided I am going to take a moment each week to stop and reflect on something I love.

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1st Survival Summer Course Medical Emergencies Breathing problems

All right, so imagine youre out there in the wild, not London, thats too tacky for you; think of a place where you lose yourself for days. Youre surrounded by wild animals and feeling exhausted for walking miles without seeing a way out. Suddenly, you and your mate look ahead and a gay bear is in musth and cannot wait a second anymore. It invests against the two of you violently striking your mate down after a violent chest hit. You realize he has sustained an injury. "Ohhh, thats bad", you say to yourself, only to verify that hes going weaker and weaker with severe bleeding. In the meanwhile you start panicking and find yourself in shock. Its when you look around and see yourself alone in an immense flood of wild noises, rotten berries, a gay bear and dark green leaves that camouflage the thousand dangers you are to face. Scenario set, what would you do to correct your equilibrium once again?

Aforementioned Gay Bear 

Lets start with the breathing problems since your mate might as well be raped by this horny bear if you do not help him straightaway. To start with, stop panicking, its not going to help you in anyway. I remember a day when my wife (by then my girlfriend) decided that she neednt my help to reach that set of blankets high up on the closet and after falling she hit her chest against the bedside table. In less than two seconds she turned from golden-tan to sick purple as her residual air was expelled from the lungs when hitting the furniture. One of my mates, startled by the fusion of noise, color change and my girls incapacity to breath by herself; started panicking and caused more upset than the issue I already had in hands. My immediate idea was to tell her to go fetch some water, to just remove her from the scene so I could assess the magnitude of whatever was going on without having the third party causing even more entropy. After that initial assessment I proceeded the way I was taught.

1) Check if the victim has a partial or complete airway obstruction. If he/she can cough or speak, allow him/her to clear the obstruction in a normal natural way. Just hold hands and reassure the individual that you are there and nothing bad is going to happen. If the scenario seems a lot more serious then be prepared to clear the airway yourself and proceed with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation (only if the individual is unconscious). With a completely obstructed airway you will have to give him/her abdominal thrusts until you clear the obstruction.

2) With your finger sweep through the subjects mouth and clear of any alien objects, broken teeth, soil particles, etc.

3) Apply the jaw thrust method, i.e., grasp the hands of the persons lower jaw and lift with both hands, one on each side, moving the jaw forward. Rest you elbows on the same surface the person is lying on if you need stability. Proceed with opening the persons lips if theyre closed by gently opening the lower lip with your thumb (see image below).

4) Once the airway is open, pinch the persons nose close with your thumb and forefinger and blow two complete breaths into his/her lungs. Mind that you need to allow the lungs to deflate after the second inflation; only them you can:

- "look for his/her chest to rise and fall,

- listen for escaping air during exhalation,

- feel for flow of air on your cheek."

5) If this forced stimulation hasnt worked then youll have to proceed to maintain the persons breathing by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

6) People can vomit during mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, especially people who suffered drowning, so check the passages for vomit and clear it periodically.

7) Do never ever forget about your Red Cross Manual, ever again.

Now, that crazy bear from before is now pants down moving towards you once again... but thats only next week.

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OSU Blue tomato

I have grown a lot of interesting tomatoes over the past few years, one of the more interesting tomatoes I grew last year was the OSU Blue tomato.  I have had a lot of questions over it so thought I would write a blog post.

OSU Blue tomato

OSU Blue was one of the first high anthocyanin tomatoes, it was bred using conventional methods (ie NOT GM).  In case you were wondering "OSU" is an acronym for Oregon State University.

From what I have read this tomato was developed by Jim Myers, OSUs Baggett Frazier professor of vegetable breeding and graduate students Carl Jones and Peter Mes.  The genes involved in producing the OSU Blue tomato are Aubergine (Abg), Anthocyanin fruit tomato (Aft) and atroviolaceae (atv), these genes came from the wild species Solanum lycopersicoides, S chilense, S cheesemanii, respectively.

This means that, just like every other domestic tomato, the OSU Blue is a complex yet stable hybrid.  I am happy to say that this is a very stable hybrid just like many other types of tomato and seeds are simple to save and they grow true to type.  Being derived from the wild tomato species I had hoped it would be resistant to a bunch of diseases, at this stage I dont know if it is or not.

On a side note I rather like S cheesemanii but they are as rare as hens teeth in Australia, if you happen to be growing any please talk to me as I would love to get some seeds from you.

The anthocyanin is the same colour that is in eggplants and it is a rich antioxidant.  The fruit ripens to a dark blue/purple/black colour wherever sunlight hits it, anywhere the light does not hit ripens red.  If a leaf or calyx or whatever is on the fruit it gets a shadow of red.  If you were to put a sticker on the unripe fruit it remains red underneath allowing for all sorts of sillyness such as spelling out the names of your kids one letter per tomato.

OSU Blue Tomato, not overly large

 The plants grow and look much like any other tomato plant.  They are indeterminate and grow a regular leaf, the flowers are yellow and much the same as any other tomato.  The leaves and stems may take on a little purple colour if the temperatures are low and the light intensity is high.  When the days get too hot the plant does not colour up as much.  The fruit takes on more colour with low temperatures and high intensity light.  People who grow these to sell seeds on Ebay and such use grow lights to get the fruit to take on more dark colour.  The colour seems to be variable even on the same plant, my plants grew a range of dark to super dark fruits.

The fruit are small, but not too small, about 4cm across.  The dark colour is mainly concentrated in the skin and a little in the flesh just under the skin.  The flesh remains red and the seeds look much like any other tomato seeds.

OSU Blue

OSU Blue with some skin removed

One question I get about the OSU Blue tomato is about the taste.  If you read about any of the high anthocyanin tomatoes on the Oregon State University web page they sound like they taste absolutely terrible.  In reality they taste ok,  certainly not the greatest tasting nor the worst tasting.  If I had to choose one word to describe the taste it would be "underwhelming".

They tasted slightly better than an average store bought tomato.  Tomatoes from the shops are pretty dreadful at the best of times so this is not a glowing review.  If you are expecting a great tasting tomato because it is home grown then you will be disappointed, other than that they are ok.  It does taste better than other tomatoes I have grown such as apollo (or possibly roma) so are not all that bad.

They lacked any real depth of flavour, they were not very sweet and were not very sour.  They were not overly insipid which was a positive, but they really didnt make a memorable impression on my taste wise.  I have certainly eaten a lot worse tasting tomatoes.

Unripe OSU Blue tomatoes

The blue colour starts long before the fruit is ripe, the unripe tomatoes look very nice while you wait for them to ripen and become edible.  The plant itself is nothing spectacular, it does not crop all that heavily and is not overly robust.  That being said it was not a weak plant and did return a reasonable yield in far less than ideal conditions.

I saved a reasonable amount of seed from my plants and do plan on growing this variety again.  I have a few breeding plans and would love to incorporate the colour into a better tasting, higher yielding variety.  I have seen some people use this to breed a great tasting tomato that has the black/blue skin but is yellow on the inside, I have also read about someone who grew tomatoes that were red and had dark stripes like a tiger.  Lots of fun.  There are many options and I only have so much space/time to pursue them.  We will be moving to town  shortly so I may not be allowed to grow many vegetables for a while.

I have also been asked how they got into Australia.  I have no idea how this variety found its way to Australia, it was bred after they closed the doors on the importation of tomato seeds.  Perhaps a university or the CSIRO imported them legally and they leaked out from there, perhaps some private grower or a sneaky large seed company imported them on the sly and was able to evade quarantine (please do not try this).  Perhaps someone or some company payed a small fortune to get the right tests done in order to legally import them.  The person who I got the seeds from initially received them unsolicited from another grower and asked no questions.

I guess I will never know how they got into the country, I also dont particularly care.  Now that they are here I can grow them, distribute them and use them in all kinds of tomato breeding projects.

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Jan Kreft Intervention LeSpar AMR Workshop The Nottingham Edition

Jan Kreft from the University of Birmingham shared with the audience at the MediCity a very interesting perspective (with loads of questions outside the box) on Antimicrobial resistance in the human gut. But before we move on to Jans participation, if you havent had the opportunity to read also Chris Dodds contribution and Rachel Gomes contribution, already posted in the blog, just click on the names to do so.

Now moving onto Jans presentation, his most remarkable shared views and points are listed below:

• There is diagnosed antimicrobial resistances present in people who have not taken any antibiotics ever or that for a long time never took them. How was such resistance acquired?
• Resistances are found even in individuals from the Yanomani tribe in Brazils Amazon [1] that were never in contact with humans.
• The prevalence of antimicrobial resistance will decline if the use of an antibiotic is discontinued because of a fitness cost of carrying the resistance. Resistance rises if an antibiotic is used because of positive selection for the resistance. So we have to ask ourselves if discontinuing works? And why does resistance persist?
• Fitness costs, diversity, variation of costs and diversity of microbes, hitchhiking (when a gene is coupled to another gene that is positively selected, e.g., resistance to mercury). We have to consider an approach to the real world.
• There is a huge bacterial diversity in gut also affecting the spread of plasmids. There are huge numbers of bacteria in the gut, ~ 5E13 individual cells. The heterogeneity  goes from small to large scale.

• Will a more prudent use of existing antibiotics be enough? What can we do? Give a narrower spectrum of antibiotics, higher dose or lower dose? Should we give a combination of two drugs rather than one? Should we invest in new drugs, ideally new classes of drugs (new strategies)?
• On the other hand should we start attacking directly the resistance genes and plasmids preventing a possible transfer? Should we prevent infections as they mean fewer treatments? What kind of research do we need? 
• We need to consider consequences of diversity of strains, plasmids, resistance genes and quantitative models to optimise treatment at population level.
• We cannot deal with complexity without models. Take for example the developed iDynoMics software, a free software available online.

Next post will have the final contribution taken from the Learned Society Partnership seminars on antimicrobial resistance - Nottingham Edition, that took place on the 7th of July this year. It will be about getting funding (by Lizzie Garratt) and some final notes on the most important questions that have emerged from the event. Hope to see you soon, have a nice time!

[1] The Yanomami: An isolated yet imperiled Amazon tribe, The Washington Post, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/world/yanomami/], last visited on the 21st of July 2015, last update on the 25th July 2014.

2nd image kindly taken from Natural selection, Wikipedia, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection], last visited on the 21st of July 2015, last published on the 14th of July 2015.

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Crimson and Clover

"If youre brave enough to say goodbye, 

life will reward you with a new hello."

-Paulo Coelho

After a monstrously busy week, Friday evening was coming to a close.  The sun had just set, time to go down the hill to retrieve the goats to their nightly residence in the barn.  As I approach their corral, there is Bella, lying on the hillside in the dirt, her large body contracting up and down.  I steady myself knowing this is the moment Ive been waiting for, except...Im home alone with just my younger son.  So I quickly rush the other goats up the hill and into their stalls, run inside, gather a big basket and fill it with some essentials (blankets, towels, peroxide/iodine, latex gloves, some baling twine, lubricant, my cell phone).  I holler to my boy to get some warm clothes on, "Bellas having her baby!"  He decides to make her a treat of a mixture of grains with molasses just in case.  He also makes her some molasses water.  I put on my trusty headlamp and head down the hill only to find....  

can you see the face?

her sac protruding, not quite as much at first as you see in the picture, just a bit of it with a hint of a hoof showing.  Even though I thought I had well versed myself on the ins and outs of goat birth, I immediately freak out.  You see, Ive never participated in birthing an animal before.  The only births Ive been present at are my own and those of my two children, where I was a key player.  

So I call my wonderful midwife neighbor who graciously rushes over and we call a helpful friend who has experience birthing her own goats.  Together the three of us make a great team.  (Thank you ladies!!)  The whole charade lasted about three hours, with a little intervention on our part in the beginning.  

And of course my son was the best eight year old doula ever!  What an amazing experience for us all.  

Bella has turned out to be a terrific mom to her twin boys.  Yes, twin boys..and what will we do with two boys?  Well, we will love them and enjoy them while they are here.  They sure are the cutest little guys.   Welcome Crimson and Clover! 

Once again, we are humbled and overflowing with gratitude for these enriching life experiences.  Three more ladies are due in the next few weeks so it will be a genuine nursery around here.  Hope your spring is filled with abundance!

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Our first twins

We had our first twins born, such an exciting day. The perfect twins, one boy for dinner and one girl to replace mum.

They were great at birth, sitting up, walking around not long after. Following mum.

Day 2, not looking as great, wondering if we should catch them and take them off mum. But they are still running after her so would have been hard to catch. We make the decision to wait till the next day and see what is happening.

Day 3, I got to check on the and find the poor mum standing by her dead lambs. Poor little things, poor mummy sheep. It was just heart breaking and I felt terrible for not taking them. But if they didnt need it I dont want to go snatching of the mum.

I am thinking maybe there is something amiss with the genetics of our flock. So we are buying some new ewes and hoping things start working out better for us. Will update with pictures when we get them on the weekend.

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Traditions

As the year is coming to a close we take time to continue some seasonal family traditions.  Outside, collecting and foraging for items to decorate our mantel; pliable grapevines for wreaths, smooth shinny buckeyes, maple leaves, acorns and evergreens.  Inside we gather with friends for our annual gingerbread people fiesta.  The children look forward to making dough, shaping cutouts and slathering on a myriad of dried fruit, nuts, candy and icing for finishing touches.  (This year the addition of the gingerbread ninja was a hit!)  These are some of the sweet little things we cherish. And as the years go by and the children become teenagers there is something so special and wholesome to just being together to bake, laugh, eat, play games and maintain connections with the people we love. 
We are praying for everyone, many blessings in 2013.  
Happy New Year from the Soul Flower Farm crew!

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Endlers guppy

The kids have been bugging me to get fish for some time.  I have wanted to get some fish, but have nowhere to put them.  I have also thought of doing a simple aquaponics set up, but that is a different type of fish altogether and the kids would most likely not be allowed to go near this. 

Then our pet turtle died, we had him since before the kids were born.  I dont know what went wrong.  The kids and I were upset.  We miss out turtle friend.

A few days later we happened to be going to Orange for something so I decided to get some fish as a surprise for the kids.  I considered getting gold fish as they are hardy and indestructible, but they are also very messy, and they do not breed easily in a tank.  I decided to get something that would breed without much work on my part, something like a guppy. 

Some of my fish - the guppy hybrids.  You cannot see the true deep colours in the pictures

I have liked guppies since I was a child, but a few years ago I learned about a fish called an Endlers livebearer.  It is uncertain if this is a type of guppy or a different type of fish.  They are prettier, hardier, and all round better than guppies.  I wanted to get some Endlers, but it is unlikely that we would find them out here, and they can be very expensive so if I did find some I did not like my chances of actually buying any.

My fish look similar to these but mine have deeper colours
- picture by Silvana Gericke http://abilo.piranho.de/aquaseite/aqua

I looked online and found someone in Orange who was selling endlers for a good price.  Guppies in town cost about $6 or $7 each, so buying from a private seller worked out a lot cheaper and I ended up with a far larger colony to start with and I got the endler fish that I prefer to guppies.  The fish were all young, and were a mix of male and female endlers as well as endler/guppy hybrids.  They did not look overly great, mostly grey, one male had nice colours so I was happy.  I found out later that when they are stressed they lose colour pretty much immediately, when they had calmed down they looked amazing.  Kind of like a container of beautiful swimming jewels darting around.  When we got home and I put them in the fish tank the males displayed brilliant neon and metallic colours, very different from the dull fish that I picked up two hours ago.

They have had baby fish for us a few times, many of which appear to be surviving to maturity.  It is difficult to count them as the tank is large and has plants and other places for them to hide.  Unfortunately I have too many males, or not enough females, so I have separated all of the non-endler male guppies from the main breeding tank.  In this way the colony will end up as all endlers.  Every baby fish from now will be either an endler or at least 50% endler.  In a few generations if I cull hard I should have all endlers, or at least fish that look very much like endlers and carry a high percentage of ender genes.  It will take some work, especially considering how speedy these little fish are and how difficult they are to catch, but it will be worth it.

Endler/guppy hybrids - poor colouration due to stress

Endlers livebearers (Poecilia wingei) may be a subspecies of guppy, or they may be their own separate species of fish.  There is a lot of scientific debate and controversy over this.  They have been classified as their own species, it is safe to assume that this is partly for conservation purposes.  The fish that I have not culled look like the original ones from the wild, they have not had any selective breeding done in order to change them.  I think that this wild type fish is one of the most beautiful fish around.  People often try to hybridise them with guppies, I feel that this is a mistake as none of the hybrids look as amazing as the wild type fish and de-hybridising them without a lot of work is virtually impossible.

Some culls

Some more culls

 In the wild they lived in Laguna de Patos in Venezuela, they may be extinct in the wild, or they may have crossed with guppies in the wild (essentially becoming extinct in their pure form), or they may have some small remnant populations somewhere.  Many people who have recently caught wild Endlers have fish that are clearly wild guppy Endler hybrids.  Many of the recent expeditions have not turned up any Endlers, and the site they they used to reside is heavily polluted, so it is difficult to know if they still exist in the wild for sure.

The Endlers livebearer was first discovered by Franklyn F Bond in 1937, these fish were then pickled, sent to a museum, filed away safely, and then forgotten about.  In 1975 Professor John Endler rediscovered these amazing little fish, he sent some live fish to a friend who named them after him and introduced them into the aquarium trade.  From there they have spread across the world through aquariums.  In Australia they seem to be rare, probably due to how recently they have been introduced to the country but also because of how easily they hybridise with guppies.

They are a beautiful and lively little fish, the males have vivid metallic colours while the females are plain.  They are very similar to the fancy guppy in a lot of ways.  Many of the modern fancy guppies have some degree of Endler blood in them, and likewise many (if not all) Endlers in Australia have guppy somewhere in their heritage. 

Endlers differ from guppies in a few ways that are noticeable for the average fish keeper:

• They can be smaller than guppies; 
• They have a shorter gestation period than guppies;
• The females are not interested in eating the new born fry, whereas guppy females are notorious fry eaters;
• New born fry seem larger and more agile than newborn guppy fry;
• They do not jump out of the water, unlike guppies who are well known for being suicidal jumpers;
• Their colouring of the males is amazing and unique;
• Females have no real colour;
• They have a slightly different shape to the guppy;
• They prefer water that is more alkaline and harder than guppies;
• They prefer warmer water to the guppy, which is good for me as my tank is outside in a sheltered position and the water temp often exceeds the lethal temp for guppies;
• Males display for the females, rather than harass them;
• They behave more like a wild fish than a pet fish - if you get some endlers you will know what I mean...

I really like these little fish, they are interesting to watch.  They quickly learn that people equate to food and begin to frantically beg wneh they see you, even if they are not hungry.  They seem to be breeding well for us in conditions that are less than ideal and I can only begin to imagine how well they would do in perfectly clear water with stable temperatures and adequate lighting.  If they survive the summer I hope to have enough to be able to sell some, trade some, perhaps keep some in with the water chestnuts during the warmer seasons or even feed some to the poultry.  

Endler male, I would cull him as mine look much nicer than this one - picture by Marrabbio2

I have tried to take pictures of the Endlers and the endler/guppy hybrids but have had no luck.  They are far too speedy for me.  I tried putting some in a jar so that they could not escape the camera but they lost their colour as soon as I caught them and did not colour up again until I put them back in their tank.  Above are some of the best pictures that we took, and they have no real colour compared to the lively little fish as soon as I put them back in the tank.

I have learned a few things about expensive guppies and "pure" endlers from my little tank.  Some of the expensive guppy types are in fact hybrids with endlers, I have had a few Japanese neon blue guppies and a few other noticeable types appear in my tank.  Some of the pure endlers that I see for sale overseas that have been collected from the wild, are in fact hybrids.  I assume that they hybridised naturally prior to being caught by people, but the fact remains that they are not pure endlers.  Again, in my little tank, I have had a few peacock endlers and some other things show up.  Some of these fish are truly beautiful and it would be simple enough to line breed them for a few generations so that I had several exotic types that breed true to type, but I have no interest in them.  The natural beauty of the wild type endlers has captivated me and I am culling hard to remove anything that is not close to a real endler.

At this stage I have no plans on sending live fish through the post, so if you would like to get them from me feel free to contact me through my for sale page but you would have to pick them up. 

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