Prestige, Brazil | digitalaquarist

Name - Prestige aquarium

Location - Manaus, Brazil

Fishroom location - Manaus city center

Speciality - Export, this compound featured here is the export center of the business, the family also own a much larger facility on the outskirts of Manaus, this larger facility is located in the jungle and holds millions of fish in thousands of large vats! More details on that facility can be found here..

Notes - In January 2018 i was lucky enough to represent Chester Zoo aquarium on a research trip to Brazil, my hosts were Project Piaba and i was to undertake a two week long expedition up the Rio Negro to view all aspects of the ornamental fish trade along the Black water Rio Negro.
I arrived in the early hours of the morning of the 20th January 2018, after a few hours rest in a comfortable hotel i made my way across Manaus to meet up with the Project Piaba staff, before embarking on our journey upriver we had the opportunity to visit three exporters located in Manaus. Prestige aquarium is an ornamental fish wholesaler and is currently the largest and most successful exporter in the area, they deal exclusively with Ruinemens aquarium inc and send fish to both of their businesses located in Holland and Miami.
The facility shown in this page is the export station, the company has a larger facility for the long term storage of tropical fish located further outside Manaus, one of the issues for the ornamental trade is that the collecting of wild caught fish is seasonal and only really possible during the dry season (Roughly June to December) this means that for half of the year there are few fish collected and smaller exporters can run out of stock and be unable to supply wild South American fish year round, this can potentially lead to the collapse of the local trade because wholesalers in Europe, Asia and America will look for more reliable sources for their Cardinals and Rummynose tetras! Prestige is the only exporter large enough to carry enough stock to supply the world trade during the wet seasons.
My impressions of this farm were good, the water is piped into the vats with a good turnover of suitable water, the tanks and vats were clean (Or as clean as can be expected!) and the fish health was good, the fish looked rested and conditioned and suitable for packing and shipping around the world! This export facility had a variety of glass tanks, fiberglass vats, plastic ponds and tiled ponds for larger fish.

Enjoy the pictures.

Click here..

This is a overview of most of the facility, behind me are more fiberglass vats and some tiled pools.

Note the glass tanks at the far end and along the back wall.

A view from the opposite direction, to the far left you can see some of the tiled pools with fiberglass vats above. The roof protects the fish from the direct sun and the rains during the wet seasons!

A look at the facility from the far right hand side, the glass tanks held a wide array of species, many thousands of Cardinal and Rummynose tetras but also lots of Corydoras, larger Cichlids such as Angelfish and Discus, Characins and Dwarf cichlids. The fish all looked to be in great condition.

These plastic containers are used throughout the region for transporting fish upriver. The names on the side indicate who owns them but it is not unusual to see an variety of names in any one facility. As one company shrinks, expands or collapses the trays are traded, sold or borrowed.

Amblydoras nauticus, one of the 'Banjo' catfish..

The picture is'nt very good im afraid and you cannot really get a sense of scale! however this is not a manatee or a dolphin :) it is a 9ft Arapiama gigas, one of the worlds largest freshwater fish. At the rear of the facility there is a large pool holding 5-6 of these stunning fish, the owners told us that they introduced them 6 years ago and they measured 12 inches!
They were huge and very impressive animals.

A tiled vat holding numerous L095 plecs, a very desirable and expensive fish here in the UK!In Manaus they were to be found at all the exporters we visited.

Symphysodon discus from the Rio Marimari, these are a beautiful fish that are in high demand in Europe!

Dianema longibarbis, lots of them!!!

Mesonauta sp, possibly Mesonauta festivus but i cannot say with 100% certainty

Symphysodon aequifasciatus, the 'Green' discus. These fish are restricted to a distribution in Eastern Brazil so it is obviously apparent that Prestige aquarium has collectors working all over the Amazon basin and not just Manaus and the Rio Negro catchment!

Pyrrhulina sp, possibly P.laeta although P.spilota can sometimes look like this when they do not show the flank spots?

Pyrrhulina are little studied and commonly known as 'splash tetras' there are numerous species and they are rarely exported under their correct name! It can be a minefield trying to identify them, especially under conditions such as this!

This fish is much easier for me to identify, Ivanacara adoketa is one of the 'Hot' species from the Rio Negro, relatively new to the hobby this fish has given collectors a lifeline, as stocks of Cardinal tetras and Rummynose tetras (The staple export items from Brazil!) are being bred en-mass in Europe and Asia and therefore competing with the South American trade, new fish species are vital for the industry to remain competitive and revive interest in Exporting South American fish!

Dicrossus filamentosus, the checkerboard cichlid. A beautiful and popular dwarf cichlid. These fish are found right across the Rio Negro drainage, every river i sampled contained thriving populations of this species. Every exporter carried good numbers of this popular fish.
It can also be found in Columbia and there is an obvious difference in caudal fin pattern between the two.

Biotoecus opercularis, a very rare and delicate dwarf cichlid from the Rio Negro, i spotted these as people were leaving the facility, i had to frantically take pictures as these are one of my all time favorite fishes. Great condition and destined for hobbyist tanks in Europe and America!

Ancistrus sp, possibly Ancistrus L071? it is certainly one of the 'starlight' bristlenose species, a black fish with a pattern of very fine white spots.

Large numbers of Corydoras schwartzi ready for shipping around the world!

Corydoras sodalis and a few Otocinclus affinis kept together, note the large filter on the right hand side, it is an undergravel filter with a large volume of substrate able to cope with the wastes of large populations of fish! It worked well, the fish are in excellent condition.

Corydoras caudimaculatus picked from the tanks ready to export, they are placed in the plastic tray, the water is treated (Although i am not sure with what?, my guess is malachite green for antibacterial purposes?) before they are bagged and shipped, note the polystyrene tag with 70 written on it! this is the count of fish for that particular order.

The packing table! some exporters offer 1/4, 1/2 or full box packing, this means that importers can potentially get four species in smaller packing numbers into a box.
Because Prestige deal with a large wholesaler they send one species per box as you can see in the pictures there is just one large bag per box, this is filled with 1/4 water and 3/4 of pure oxygen, this is the industry standard and allows fish to be shipped for upto 48 hours (Usually less) in relative comfort.

Nannostomus trifasciatus, another species rarely bred in captivity and certainly not in commercial numbers, fish such as these are always in demand and help support the sustainable Rio Negro fishery and create jobs and livelihoods for those involved in this large and complex business.

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