By STEVEN JUPITER
PITTSFORD—If the thought of keeping fish conjures up images of lonely little goldfish in tiny little fishbowls, you ought to see the tanks in Bob Hooker’s place. His living room is home to four massive tanks, each teeming with a variety of aquatic exotica, in addition to the other aquariums around his 19th-century, antique-laden house in Pittsford village. Big fish, small fish, frolicky fish, bashful fish, you name it, Bob’s got it. On a recent visit, a beautiful, white, bug-eyed koi glided in its tank like a spectre through the air. It was easy to fall into a trance just watching its graceful movements in the water.
“I got my first fish at 11. That was 62 years ago. You do the math,” said Hooker, a trim man with a ponytail as white as the koi.
“My parents took me to visit my Uncle Archie and Aunt Madge in Montpelier. Madge had a 10-gallon tank full of guppies in her living room. I was fascinated by the colors. My mother tried to stop it, but I went home with a bunch of guppies in a mayonnaise jar.”
“My first fish was a blind cavefish,” offered Emily Nelson of Brandon, as if everyone has at some point owned a blind cavefish. Emily sat next to Hooker, wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the logo of the Otter Valley Aquarium Society (OVAS), which she and Hooker refer to simply as “Fish Club.”
The blind cavefish is so called because, naturally, it is blind and lives in caves. A member of the tetra family, it has red streaks where a fish would normally have eyes, creating the unsettling impression that someone had gouged them out. It would not at all be surprising if in some culture’s mythology there’s a story about the blind cavefish that involves a deity punishing a mortal by plucking out its eyes. In any event…
“There was a fish store in Middlebury,” continued Nelson. “It was going out of business. The cavefish was unique.”
At different times, both Nelson and Hooker worked in pet stores in Rutland, Nelson at Royal Pets and Hooker in the pet department at W.T. Grant (where Walmart now is). Hooker moved on to a pet store in Essex Junction. He married, had kids, got divorced and had to take five fish tanks with him when he moved out.
It is no exaggeration to say their lives have been full of fish. They have formed relationships with fish that lasted longer than many marriages.
“I love catfish and had a redtail catfish for 19 years,” Hooker said. It died when Hooker made the mistake of putting another fish in its tank. Catfish just hoover up their food and Hooker’s beloved redtail vacuumed up this intruder and ended up unable to digest it.
“We aim for longevity,” added Nelson. “But it’s a continual learning process that involves death. It happens.”
Nelson has bought most of her fish at the auctions run by OVAS. The club meets on the second Tuesday of every month in the lower level of the Maclure Library in Pittsford. After congenial fishchat (accompanied by snacks and beverages), there’s often an expert speaker and then a sale of fish, aquatic plants, and aquarium supplies. OVAS does run a major auction on the third Sunday in May at the American Legion in Rutland that brings out many more folks, but the monthly auctions are smaller affairs. At the most recent meeting, for example, Nelson was the only member to bring fish (properly bagged for transport). They did find a buyer in a guest from the Tropical Fish Club of Burlington who had traveled down to hear OVAS’s scheduled speaker, Lee Newman.
Mr. Newman had come to the meeting to deliver a presentation on South American cichlids (pronounced “sick-lids”), a collection of over 3,000 species that includes the aquarium-favorite angel fish but encompasses many others with different colors and different shapes. Newman had a 33-year career at the Vancouver Aquarium in Canada and now, in his retirement, keeps a “modest fish room,” which in fishspeak means a room with several 300-gallon tanks and a reserve of treated water to replenish the tanks as needed (careful with copper levels in untreated water!).
“I have over 1,000 gallons of water in my basement…on purpose,” he joked.
Hooker and Nelson encourage anyone with an interest in fishkeeping, whether beginner or pro, to come to the meetings and join this community of fish-minded souls. They’re happy to help folks get started. (According to Hooker and Nelson, guppies are good starter fish. Avoid goldfish: they soil their water very quickly.)
The atmosphere at the meeting was warm, witty, and decidedly fishy. So, if you’ve been thinking about starting an aquarium but didn’t know how to begin, give the Otter Valley Aquarium Society a try. And remember: the first rule of Fish Club is you talk about fish.
