THE ANGELFISH LOCUS

Jan Burzanovský

aka

watermillman

Name:                      Jan Burzanovský

Nickname:              watermillman

& Forum name

 

Living mottos:   1) Keep smiling always and everywhere

                         2) Forever young hippie, with optimistic view into the future

 

I was born in Prague 51 yrs ago, where I  studied to grammar school, but most of my life Ihave lived in small town Úvaly just East of the Czech Republic capital city of Prague, a beautiful place that captured my heart.

 

My mother Ivanka Slavíčková (she died in 1988) and also her second husband Zbyněk Slavíček were well known Czech creative artists, who exhibited  their textile art (textile frescos Art-Protis and Ara-Optimix) in many art galleries in USA, Canada, Australia, Israel, West Europe and Japan during 70´s and 80´s. .

My father was a building draftsman and both he and my stepfather have retired.

I have been  married thirty years and have one daughter and one granddaughter. Now I´m living in Zeleneč  - village near by Prague and also Úvaly in Czech Republic in middle of Europe.

 

I have been interested in freshwater tropical fish for more than forty years, since  I was a four year old boy visiting my Uncle, Ota Mirvald in Sušice town (west on Czech Republic) for the first time. It was in the early 60´s, when we were there with my mother (Ota was her cousin), that I saw for first time in my life not only one fish tank, but all of Ota´s  three fishrooms. My Uncle was a well known and esteemed breeder of many species of tropical fish, but whose first love was Angelfish above all.  Even as a young boy, these fish bewitched me with their uniqueness, attractiveness and beauty.

 

 In the following years I kept  one tank from time to time until I met my wife where we started my tanks in our first apartment in the "Smalltown" part of old historic Prague in the early of 80´s.

It was different to the typical attic apartment, and had several special wall niches. The main one in the living room was designed to either have an artistic sculpture or fish tank and in the end, the fish tank won out. It was really where I started to learn about and practise to keep  aquarium fish in cluding Angels.

It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with these fish and in a short time I had two tank racks and three separate large tanks there, and I began my first experiments with fish.

 

When the old political regime in the Czech Republic  fell in the early 90’s, the changing times opened up new opportunities for us and I returned to Uvaly where I built my new house and included a custom built fishroom with 8 cubic metres of tank space (8000 litres = a little less than 2000 gallons).

The changing times were favorable for the Professional Aquariast which enabled  more of my fish to be exported by  by those that had the appropriate permits to do so. The business became so good it then enabled me to take Fish Breeding as my full time job.

 

Through all these times I was interested in aquaristic broad issues - from everything about tropical fishes and ichtyology, but also about all economic and  social issues of the hobby  that were  connected with it in our Republic.

At the same time I attended all the aquaristic exhibitions, lecture events and meetings that I could. In 1995 one my friends opened lhe first "Hobby Pet Shop" in Úvaly and I worked there as a specialist for all aquarium issues for more than five years and became well known amongst many pet wholesalers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As my knowledge and experience increased, from 1993, I started specialising in certain fish such as, Pedigree labyrinths (more wild bettas), catfish from loricarinae and ancistrinae groups, cichlids -   dwarf Southamerican and Westafrican cichlids and the whole Pterophyllum genus at first.

In 1997 the Czech cichlid club was re-constituted and I became a member there. At the same time my friend and I - aquarists in Úvaly – established the "Úvaly´s Aquaristic Association" (where I´m as secretary to today) and in the following year we affiliated with and became members of the "Union of Aquarists in Czech Republic - AKVA CZ" (member of E.A.T.A. - European Aquaristic and Teraristic Association). In 2000 I was voted as secretary by UACR - AKVA CZ and from end of 2003 also as secretary by Czech Cichlid Club.

In Spring of 2005 with several friends I also founded the Czech Labyrinthfish Association, where I was voted 2005 - 2008 as president.

 

By the end of the  90´s, the Czech Republic was one of the World´s leading exporters of tropical fish and my own fish were considered some of the best exported from the Czech Republic.

 I decided with my family to sell our house in Úvaly, where the environment for breeding tropical fish was less than perfect and buy a  water mill in  our Western Highlands located partly in the south-eastern part of the historical region of Bohemia and partly in the south-west of the historical region of Moravia. Its capital is Jihlava.

 

It gave us (better water supplies) with the possibility for large fishrooms to be rehoused all there in Autumn of 2002.

After a short time the economic climate deteriorated and the interest in the breeds that I specialized in began fall.

Prices for all economic  inputs such as electricity, oil, etc. Increased by 500 % over the last last fifteen years,  while prices for tropical fish were coming down.

The situation became so bad, I had to postpone all my future plans in 2006, sell my water mill and hatchery  and move back to living in Prague while I looked for a new job.

 

So for now – a thinker and aquarist - theorist, but I´m an optimist and hope that better times will come in the near future and I will be able to continue with my practical researches and work with fish in another new place. I say to myself "don´t you stop and don´t sleep, but you must fight neverending!"

 

From 1999 I gave approx 20 lectures about Pterophyllum genus, dwarf cichlids and wild bettas in 5  of our Czech aquaristic associations and aquaristic´s meetings in Praha (Prague), Brno, Úvaly, Rychnov nad Kněžnou, Plzeň up until recently

I still carry out some administrative functions for some paper magazines "Akvárium-Terárium" and "Akva Tera Fórum", and review the last articles and reports in 2003 & 2004 in nationwide internet forum www.akvarista.cz, where I´m also a member

I am also a member of the author review team on the  internet e-zin and adminstrator of the  forums of Czech Cichlid Club ("skalarfórum" and "Czech Cichlid Club main forum", where I have my newest articles now) and Czech Labyrinthfish Association both discussion forums.

From 2005 I was hooked as a member into Finarama international organization about angels and also at The Angelfish Forum and after several years also  I becomed as member of The World Angelfish Forum.

 

In more recent times,  I am giving my hands and mind to working inside national legislative processes over breeder´s problems and studying all needs new law possibilities about it.

In 2008 I was involved with the formation on Czech fish systematic work - co-operation on Czech names for wild bettas (altogether with Martin Rose and Jiří Plíštil on work in project for doctor Hanel and Novák below National Czech Museum in Prague) - first publicated on AQUATAB - our main ichtyologic server, where I have also some from my articles.

In Spring of 2008 I had my work"Standards and directions for hosting of competitions for fish of genus Pterophyllum"  published

 

In Autumn of the same year it was publicated on "skaláfórum" also, and same time it was also published in a German translattion. From the original Czech version. Now with my friend Johan (Fish_Tail) from "The World Angelfish  Forum"  we are working on the  English version of it. Between 2005 - 2008 years

I have written a monography about Pterophyllum genus called "Adventure with Amazonian Angels", which I am hoping to also publish in the near future in the Czech version and for which I have found sponsors

From Decebmer 2008 to May 2009 I was a member of translation team from German to Czech version "Grosse Discus Buch" from Berndt Degen sr., what he want press in his BeDe Verlag publishing house also in Czech language.

 

When I finish the Monologue (book) about Angelfish my interests about this genus will not end, but I have other new materials and and ideas for a Part 2 of the Monologue, (book)  because, are too much questions that i don’t have answers for in the first book..

Also I´m returning into my earlier prepared work about wild bettas, and which I stopped work for to complete the Angelfish monography.

Similarly, I also intend to complete a work on the history of Czech aquaristics  which I will call "Memories from Czech aquaristic scene". But it´ll be possible future...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And my other interests off aquaristic? I´m rocker and playin´ in one underground "darkpunk" group on bass now. I interest for history, biology and other nature sciences, art, architecture, gardening, sci-fi literature and also my family.

 

Jan Burzanovský

14.6.2009 Zeleneč u Prahy (it´s Greenvillage by Prague), Czech Republic

Jan’s friend that opened up the first “Hobby Pet Shop”

Jan’s first lecture on Angelfish

All of the pictures on this page are paintings that have been hand crafted by Jan himself.