Axel Meyer, Heiko Bleher & companions did research in the crater lakes of Nicaragua in 2007 and found in the Laguna de Apoyeque some very interesting forms of Amphilophus with Heiko Bleher's discovery of one particular amazing and colourful one. This videos shows in short a resume of how the Amphilophus forms dwell and nest in the lake and their habitat. In addition one can see the fight to survive, everyone tries to eat the offspring of the others and it can be seen how evolution and speciation is in full swing. This is possibly the first underwater film of this very difficult to reach Crater lake in Nicaragua and shows also for the first time all 5 forms living in it and in detail at the end of the film, including and amazing Amphilophus cf. labiatus.
On two expeditions in 2007 and 2008 Heiko Bleher was able to discover
for the first time in history by white man what he believes is the
largest natural freshwater aquarium in the world. It is a crystal clear,
over 60 km long river covered almost in its entire length with
underwater plants. Such a pristine habitat with an amazing amount and
variety of fishes ist almost second to none. Natasha Khardina and Nidal
Rezeq did amazing under water films and Julia Krivish did beautiful
photography. To see the report...
End of November, during one of Heiko Bleher's 2009 Amazon expeditions,
he also researched along the Atabapo and it tributaries. See
what he found just in one spot of very rocky area and the nice video
Natasha under water of some amazing Dekeyseria, possibly 3
species... For more photos visit our report about Caño Raia...
This creek Heiko explored by walking over land with Natasha and Alirio and reached this almost untouched small waterway discovering many miniature fish species in a mini-habitat. This is to show how little space some fishes live all their live, often smaller then a very small (Nano)aquarium. In the Caño Tonnina was one area where the creek broadens and in a 60 cm deep hole Natasha was able to film the cichlids living there, including a red-lip Heros species, possibly new. Enjoy…
After the Indaquaria
2010 Heiko Bleher and Natasha Khardina went to the lower reaches
of the Seethalam Falls in Andra Pradesh to do research on the threatened
aquatic fauna there as they are building a dam now. Fortunately Heiko
was still able to catalogue 16 different fish species in this small
creek (see begin of the film) and Natasha made a short film of a
beautiful Etroplus maculatus pair with its fry in a tiny rest
water whole in a freshwater spring which soon will be history...
The Brilliant or Bleher’s Rummy Nose Tetra is also found in the Rio Atabapo, Venezuela. The Atabapo is a black water river like the waters in the Rio Negro basin – where Heiko Bleher discovered this species in 1965, which was finally described by Jacques Géry and Volker Mahnert in 1987. And note: Hemigrammus bleheri is not be confused with the common Rummy Nose Tetra, Hemigrammus rhodostomus, which is only found in the lower Amazon basin and much less colourful. Also the latter is rarely seen in the hobby today. Hemigrammus bleheri is one of the best, if not the best, group fish for a biotope correct aquarium and here one can see how they love its discoverer, cleaning his legs and arms from parasites and Aufwuchs…
Heiko did do research in the Caño Sardiña on
2 December, during one of his Amazon expeditions in 2009. This is a
tiny tributary of the upper Caño Bocón in the Río Inirida basin in
Colombia. This tiny Caño was very difficult to enter with a small dugout but had an incredible wealth of fishes including some new species. Here hear one can see a few of the nearly 50 different species. For more detail go to Expedition inCaño Bocón...
Biotope of Corydoras cf. arcuatus in nature – Cano de La Libertad, Colombia
Filmed by Natasha Khardina, Aquapress Publishers, Italy
To see the complete report go to Expedition-section
For years, latest since the first official
announcement of breeding Pterophyllum altum appeared in popular publications worldwide and in the internet, have aquarists miss-identified this majestic species living only in the upper Rio Orinoco tributaries and nowhere else. Heiko Bleher, who was the first to collect
and introduced the 1904 described species in the late 1960s into the hobby. He is a video taken by Natasha Khardina in November 2009 of its habitat and detailed photography how to identify P. altum correctly. Here is a very short preview of the 8-minute video.
To see the full video with all details of the species go here...
Hudson, owner of HEKDISCUS http://www.hek.com.br/ , is a very good friend who has made a field trip to the location where Heiko discovered the first Heckel Discus Symphysodon discus in the 1990s, the Rio Nhamundá, and also to the Lago Nhamundá, where Blue and Brown Discus (S. haraldi) live. Heiko went several times with Manuel Torres (see Bleher’s Discus, Vol. I ) collecting and introduced the first Discus form the area into the hobby. There are some very nice variants of S. haraldi in the lake and some populations live near rocky (lava-stone) habitat, which is rare for Discus in Amazonia. Manuel had later started to collect selective the beauties in the night and today his son follows his father’s footsteps. Hudson went and filmed this selective collecting at night for the first time and here it is…
…and here Hudson made some underwater film during daylight of Heckel Discus group in the Rio Nhamundá.
On one of Heiko’s most recent Amazon expeditions with several new discoveries he was also able to find a possibly new Characidium species. He has been searching for decades around the globe also for fish species that live exclusively in rapids and waterfalls – at those places where the water has its most rapid, strongest fall or currant. There, in between members of the circum-tropical found aquatic plant family Podostemaceae, which live only in such fast flowing habitats, he discovered already decades ago that also different fish species have adapted to live all their live under such extreme conditions. In South America he found mostly species of the characoid family Characidiidae (Crenuchidae by some) and on December 9, 2009, he discovered this amazing fish in the La Libertad Waterfall in the unexplored upper Apaporis river in Colombia. Natasha made a short video during his search...
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