The IG BSSW e.V. was founded November 8th, 2008 as the successor organization of the VDA-Arbeitskreis “BSSW” (the VDA workgroup “BSSW”) in Lehrte (district Sievershausen).
We are an association of specifically interested hobbyists. In this group, people gather who focus on care and breeding of barbs, characins, loaches and catfish.

The IG BSSW is an independent, nonprofit association.
We intend to accrete available knowledge about the fish groups of interest through contacts to fellow national as well as international hobbyists and support the spreading of these species through breeding and exchange in the hobby as well as science.
We also respect animal welfare and refuse to keep either genetically modified specimen or bred varieties that significantly suffer due to the bred alterations.

Every member recieves the „BSSW-Report“ four times a year. This is our periodical where members report on their experiences with care and breeding of their fishes. But also reports on tricks and ruses regarding aquarium technology or experience about fish food and its preparation can be published. Also, the „BSSW-Report“ serves as a contact platform between the members. Here, sales offers and buy (or trade) requests can be placed or contacts can be made to hobbyists keeping the same fish. Finally, special issues are released on an irregular basis, focusing on specific topics. In these special issues, extensive reports about small groups of fish are published which tend to reach scientific character.
Interested members can also get a CD with slides for an additional charge. This CD contains, among other things, twelve pictures of fish from our area of interest, the tables of contents of the current years´ „BSSW-Report“ as well as additional reports of interest.
The four coordinators for the respective fish groups are of help if necessary in a direct or indirect way or arrange contact to experts for specific questions, be they other members or scientists and experts the association is working with.
Of special importance is, however, the contact and exchange among the members. This is largely takingplace during the annual meeting of the members as well as through the „BSSW-Report“, but also preferably during the regular meetings of the regional groups. Here, members can exchange on a regular basis. This diverse offer of information is accompanied by talks.

The annual charge for our association is 26.00 Euro at present. Included herein is the quarterly “BSSW-Report”. Members who wish to also obtain the annual CD with slides are charged an additional 7.50 Euro. Finally for admission, a one-time charge of 5.00 Euro is to be paid.

More information regarding the association, its institutions and regional groups as well as an event program can be found at our Website. For additional questions, you can of course also contact our executive secretary.

The IG BSSW consists of four different groups: barbs, loaches, tetras and catfishes. The individual groups are shortly introduced in the following:

The “barbs” branch refers to the whole order cypriniformes, which is with more than 2500 species as speciose as the order siluriformes with about 2800 species or the order characiniformes with about 2000 species.
Cypriniformes are, with exception of South America, Australia, Madagaskar and New Zealand, found in most parts of the World and almost exclusively live in fresh water. There are extremely small species that hardly reach 8mm, such as Paedocypris progenetica which was discovered only in 1996. But there are also species which reach lengths of 2.5m, such as Barbus tor.
Those fishes usually referred to as “barbs” in the hobby are predominantly found the subfamily Barbinae and more specifically in the genera Barbus and Puntius. Additional, relevant subfamilies would be Rasborinae or Danioninae. Historically, barbs and cypriniformes, respectively, were quite important for the hobby. Goldfish (Carassius auratus for example were first brought to Europe around 1610 from their Chinese country of origin. Tropical cypriniformes, such as Puntius conchonius, belong to the oldest known ornamental fish – they were first brought to Europe in 1903.
Barbs are known as schooling fish. This is reason for them to often present quite striking patterns or reflective scales, which are used in orientation and communication within the school. Of the cypriniformes, it is mostly the members of Barbus, Danioninae and Rasborinae that contain relevant aquarium fish, because they tend to be colorful and reach modest lengths of 2 to 10cm. A number of barbs belong to the standard assortment, the demand of which is almost exclusively covered by bred fish mostly from Asia or the Czech Republic. Those interested in uncommon barbs not found in the trade might be lucky in the IG BSSW, because a number of members frequently travels to the countries of origin of these fishes or have good contacts to importers and the trade.

Tetras are mostly found in South America and Africa. The main part of those found in the ornamental fish trade reaches only a few centimeter in length. There are, however, some species that can reach lengths of more than a meter with several kilograms of body weight. Just think of Colossoma macropomum or Hydrocynus vittatus. Most – but certainly not all – tetras have an adipose fin. This small fin is found – if present et all – near the caudal fin. The adipose fin is for example missing in the Lebiasinidae and Gasteropelecidae. There, presence or absence of an adipose fin is not useful to identify tetras. There is, however, one characteristic that is common to all tetras: the missing barbels. However diverse the body shape of tetras is, or their feeding regime: there are aufwuchs and algae feeders, fruit- and seeds feeders and insectivores, but also some specialists that feed on other fish or their fins and scales. Tetras are not actually schooling fish. If kept under appropriate conditions, only a few tetras will form schools in the aquarium. Mostly, the males will set up and defend temporary territories against others, once they are in spawning condition. Just like most goups of fish, also tetras partly developed highly specialized reproduction methods. Most tetras are egg scatterers which simply disperse their spawn in the plants. There are, however, also substrate spawners, cave spawners and even species with stock fertilization.

Until now, almost a thousand different species of loaches (Cobitoidea, Cypriniformes) are known and become more by the day. Most species are found in Asia and Europe, but there are even some species found in Africa. Only the North American relatives from the group of sucker fish are almost unknown to the aquarium hobby. Loaches conquered habitats as diverse as peat swamps, pools, lakes, hill streams and even caves. Accordingly, the diversity in loaches spans from hillstream loaches to Kuhli loaches. There are dwarfs as small as a thumbs widths, and meter long giants, peaceful fellows and highly territorial rough guys. Until recently loaches were generally underrated in the hobby and simply used as snail eaters. Very recently however, spectacularly colorful new imports, mostly of the hillstream loaches, which prove to be well suited for the aquarium hobby, aided in rising interest in this group of fishes. The social and territorial behavior of most loaches is comparable to that of cichlids, and additionally, there is currently little known about the breeding behavior of most species: This represents an enormous potential field for observations and research of dedicated hobbyists, breeders and ichthyologists. They are organized within the IG BSSW.

The catfishes are collected within 35 families, 446 genera and more than 2800 species. Additionally, there are about 200 currently undescribed species. They are found in South, Middle and North America, Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe. The only species known in central Europe is Silurus glanis. Most species are benthic. These usually nocturnal fish live in virtually all conceivable habitats and have diverse feeding habits. A lot of species perform brood care, where some of them developed highly specialized strategies. The majority of catfishes kept in aquaria belong to the families Callichthyidae and Loricariidae. Only a small number of hobbyists is dedicated to catfish families from Africa or Asia. There is, however, a lot new to discover with these, a fact that is also proven by the large number of newly described species from Asia in recent years. The catfishes represent a considerable fraction of the activities of the IG BSSW, and also the diversity of species kept is remarkable. A selection of figures from the year 2006 can serve to illustrate this. In 2006, a total of 13 different families and 11 subfamilies, including 102 genera and an impressive total of 403 different species of catfishes were kept by members of the IG BSSW. Catfishes are by no means “cleanup” fishes. They sometimes are highly specialized fishes that can be highly specialized feeders in their habitats. Catfishes are interesting and adorable creatures, that should not be absent in any fish room.