Publication2 med aquascape Publication1cs complete | Page 139

Part of Horacio Dominguez´s fish farm complex Thorichthys pasionis Parachromis friedrichsthalii we were after. Horicio showed us many of the cich- lid species kept; many were wild caught and first generation fish. That same day Horacio took us to a pond that was originally made by Pemex National Oil Company in search of oil. However this was later abandoned, this pond was filled with water that leaked due to terrain features and later populous fish in the con- stant flooding Villahermosa suffered during the rainy season. It was in this place where we would catch our first fish which were Thorichthys meeki, Thorichthys pa- sionis, exCichlasoma salvini and Petenia splendida. Later we travelled to Chiapas where after a car trip of about 2.5 hours we reached our next destina- tion the Rio Puyacatengo I must say that in this riv- er we discovered a sad sight, an infestation of Hy- postomus plecostomus, locally called devil fish. This is a catfish originally from South America that were introduced by man and adapted and since proliferated unchecked. Having no natural preda- tors or control agent, they have had an explosion that saturates the water to such a degree that the sandy bottom appears black by the amount of the- se fish. However, the news is not all bad as we were able to find Theraps lentiginosus, 27