Name - Alan Vassiere
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Location - Saint Helens UK
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Fishroom location - Indoors, Alan lived above a shop and the fishroom was located in a spare bedroom.
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Speciality - Characins
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Notes - Unfortunately on the 24/10/2012 we lost Alan to Cancer, i was lucky enough to call him a friend for over 6 years, i first met Alan when our mutual friend Mark Breeze invited a French aquarist over to the UK to swap fish, Mark brought the French aquarist on a fishroom tour, they visited my fishroom first, we then went onto Alans house and here i found a wonderland of characins, Alan specialised in Nannostomus and we instantly had a mutual interest, i saw my first Butterfly barbs, plenty of Corydoras fry and plenty of other interesting and 'difficult' species, Alan made breeding them look easy!
We visited several local fishshops as a group and eventually ended up in a quaint country pub, this i was to learn later was Alans trademark, he enjoyed nothing more than socialising over a beer and was one of the most sociable people i know!
My relationship with Alan developed further after this first meeting, i started to visit him at home and spent hours with him in his fishroom discussing the finer points of breeding pencilfish, i mainly listened and learnt but had enough of my own experiences to hold my own in conversation, i wish now that i had taken my camera with me more often than i did and unfortunately i only have a few pictures of Alan's fishroom, no-where as many as i should of taken! little did i know that my time with this master breeder was to be so short!
I started to attend Preston and District aquarist society not long after and excepted an invitation from friends John and Liz Dean, Ray Blackburn and Alan to travel with them, i would drive to Alans flat, have a chat and then travel with them to Preston, these were amongst the best times in my aquatic career, i learnt more in those years than at any other time.
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I have reproduced several of Alans excellent breeding articles on my website with permission of his family, please look them up and have a read.
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I would also like to introduce Alan and Alans fishroom here with pictures, as i said i wish i had more photographs, but these few i do have are treasured and show Alans fishroom as it was towards the end of his life, in years gone by Alan had much larger fishrooms and had bred many 100's of species. The world has lost a very well respected fishbreeder!
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Alan in his usual position, sat next to his characin spawning tanks with morning sun beaming on them, Alan often swore that the morning sun was vital to a lot of breeding attempts!
A few of Alan's breeding tanks, a closer up view! note the feathery spawning mops, this is called eyelash wool and as far as i can tell Alan was one of the very first to develop these mops against the standard wool mops, the finer fibres allow the fish to swim amongst the mop with much less resistance, some of the tanks have a mesh on the tank base to prevent egg predation.
Alans corner (Without Alan of course!) Note the bottles of Infusoria on the window cill behind Alans chair, there is also a torch on the desk next to the tanks, a vital tool for any breeder but especially for a characin breeder, eggs are impossible to see without one!
A rack of corydoras maintenance/breeding tanks, i saw several species spawning here on my visits to Alan.
Some of the larger tanks in Alans room, this one is holding Nannostomus espei adults, in months to come they would be full of Nannostomus mortenthaleri offspring, Alan mastered the breeding of this species and had them in abundance!
A closer look at the typical spawning setup, Alan used a tank within a tank, the internal tank has a mesh base rather than a glass bottom, the eggs are then free to fall out of reach of the parents.
This is what the insert looks like up close.. Proudly modelled by Alan for my camera.
Scleromystax sp ... Im unsure of the species.
Nannostomus espei, a rare and expensive fish from Guiana in South America, these fish are not commercially bred due to lots of difficulties in production, Alan was breeding lots and had worked out a good method for producing numbers of this species for the local market.
Corydoras fry, freshly hatched and kept in margarine containers with an airline, they would be fed small foods, kept clean and soon moved onto larger tanks, by keeping the fish in a confined area you can keep the food in close proximity to the offspring and they do not need to expend a lot of energy looking for food.
The trick with this method is cleaning! the tubs need very regular maintenance and plenty of waterchanges.
Nannostomus espei... Again!
Alan had lots!!
Corydoras (Or Scleromystax?) Fry...
Corydoras sp.. My mind is saying C.burgessi? but i cannot remember clearly. Whatever the species Alan had lots of them!
Alan was a certified Master Breeder and was the first to work his way to 1000 points in the F.N.A.S (Federation of Northern Aquarist Societies) breeders award scheme! (See the newspaper clipping at the top of the page!)
This picture was hanging on Alans wall and shows a few of the trophies that came Alans way over the years! as well as specialising in Breeding fish he was an excellent show man in his day, apparantly many a judge ran a mile when Alan wanted to 'discuss' points at the end of a competition.
In September 2012 just a month before loosing his battle against Cancer, Alan was awarded a lifetime membership of Preston and District aquarist society at the yearly convention and recognised for his achievements over the years, he was surrounded by Family and friends and was awarded a beautiful hand carved Nannostomus plaque, this was presented to him by his good friend and Amazonas magazine editor Hans Evers. In the background is one of Alans Daughters and Grandson.
Alan with both Daughters, Grandson and sitting with his long time friend Jack Irish. Another good friend and respected aquarist Ian Fuller is in the background of this picture.
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This photograph does not do this justice! it is a beautiful wood carving with lots of detail.
Alans long term friend Ray Blackburn (Over 40 years!) and family saying goodbye to Alan at the wake.
Mike Connor, Jack Irish, Harry Shields and myself saying our goodbyes to Alan.
Mark Breeze and myself.. A sad day but a lovely funeral and a good send off from family and friends!
Gone but never forgotten, Alan has left a large hole in the lives of everyone that knew him!