STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL BOWL SHOW
By Frank Cowherd, BOWL SHOW Chairman
This years PVAS BOWL SHOW is on Saturday July 6, 2019
I hope you bring at least one fish to the show. You will learn something about fish keeping along the way.
I have been taking fish to BOWL SHOWS for a very long time and have won some prizes along the way. I have lost a fish or two but not many, from the fish jumping out of the tank or my making a mistake in water quality like forgetting to add dechlorination chemicals.
Here are the SEVEN things you should know and do to get your fish to and from a BOWL SHOW successfully:
1. Make sure the fish you bring was living in the best quality water. If you are doing routine weekly water changes or at least changing water a couple times a month, you are providing your fish good water to live in that has little build up of pollutants. If you are doing so, your fish are almost certainly in good shape and will survive the change to 100% new water in the bowl. If you are not doing routine water changes, you can catch up by doing daily or every other day water changes of about 50% for a week and then once a week thereafter. If your fish are living in water with high pollutants levels because of few or infrequent water changes, they are stressed and if caught and placed in good water, the change can result in bad things. Then when you get back home and transfer the fish back into less than good water, the fish is again distressed.
Tomorrow I will continue this article with step 2.
Step 7.
7. A fish with nothing in its gut/intestines will not pollute the bowl as much as a fish with a full gut. You should not feed any fish you are going to show (or ship/mail) for at least a day and two days are better. Freshwater fish have a fat reserve that allows them to go a week to ten days or more without eating.
I do not feed the fish I take to auctions for 2 days prior to bagging them for the auction or for shipping them.