The golden times of the ornamental fish trade from South America are unfortunately over and the diversity of imported species was limited very much in the last months. Because of import restrictions, the progressive destruction of the habitats and the lack of money for expeditions into remote localities we cannot expect that the import of some l-numbers, that were still imported some months ago, will take place again in the future.

Some members of the

IG BSSW have therefore joined forces and founded the AG L-Welse (workgroup L-Numbers), those job is to make a survey of the stock of species in captivity, to coordinate the stocks and to preserve the species by breeding them.

At the moment especially the Brazilian species of the genera Hypancistrus, Pseudacanthicus and Panaque belong to the group of l-numbers, that will certainly disappear totally out of our tanks, if we do not breed them specifically. The AG L-Welse tries to make regular statistical surveys in order to estimate the number of specimens that are kept and bred in our tanks and to find out the state of thread of the single l-number species.

Admittedly the Brazilian nature conservation authority IBAMA is working on a new version of the positive list at the moment and we can expect, that the import of some species that are not imported at the moment will soon be allowed again. However there will be others that will never be imported again in all probability. Only by doing something right in time we can protect these species for our hobby. But this is only possible, if the stock of these l-numbers is known, why the AG L-Welse asks even for your help.
Further informations you can get on the homepage l-welse.ig-bssw.org.