Haydock Park

British Discus Show 2009 - 28th/29th November 2009
Tue 6th Oct 09 - 9:34

November 2008 saw the British and International Discus Keepers Association (BIDKA) host their debut British Discus Show in Bristol. The show was attended by over 600 visitors and was a huge success!

Following on from this un-paralleled success we are delighted to announce that we are hosting the second British Discus Show in November 2009. The show will be held at the magnificent Haydock Park Racecourse, and will be bigger and better than last year's show.
BIDKA is a non-profit organisation established on the 13th November 2006.

The event will take place on the weekend of Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th November, with benching taking place on Friday afternoon 27th November at

Haydock Park Racecourse
Newton-le-Willows
Merseyside
WA12 0HQ
Tel: +44 (0)1942 402624

Our aims are to promote the discus fish and to improve the quality of the fish available, both wild caught and domestically bred, and the understanding of what constitutes quality within the discus hobby. One of the mechanisms for this is to produce the 2009 British Discus Show.  This year we will have some 72 tanks of world class Discus in competition with entries from across Europe.  We already have confirmed visitors from the USA, Sweden, Germany and many other European countries.

Speakers and Judges
We have a world class line up of guest speakers and judges, which include:
Andrew Soh:  Andrew is a world renowned author and breeder of discus and many other fishes. Andrew is the author of the bestselling books "Discus the Naked Truth" and "Discus Problems and Solutions".  Andrew will be giving a talk on "Creating Designer Discus" and will also be acting as our senior judge again.
Jörg Stendker:  Jörg's hobby became full time in the 80s and the current company Discus Zucht Stendker Ltd was launched by the brothers in 1998. They have over 400 breeding pairs in more than 1,000 tanks.  At anytime they have around 80,000 young discus. Jörg will be giving a lecture entitled "Diskuszucht Stendker from beginning to now" and will also be judging.
Jeffrey Tan:  Jeffrey started breeding discus in 1987 and has had discus farms where he has exported fish from Ipoh, Malaysia worldwide.  Jeffrey was President of the Discus Society Malaysia from 2003 to 2007. Jeffrey is currently running an Arowana Farm, a Stingray Farm and a 20 hectare Pitaya [red pulp] Cactus fruit farm.  Jeffrey will be giving a lecture and will also be judging.
Dr Peter Burgess:  Dr Peter Burgess is an experienced aquarium hobbyist and fish health scientist. He has written over 300 articles and five books on fish health and is a visiting lecturer in Aquarium Sciences and Conservation at Plymouth University. Among his other roles, Peter is senior consultant to the Mars FishCare business and regularly runs fish health & husbandry courses for aquarists, fish scientists and vets.  Peter will be giving a lecture on "Parasites of discus and other fish".
Mike O'Sullivan:  Mike is an experienced aquarium hobbyist who has bred many difficult to breed species. He is currently working with discus, freshwater rays, cory cats and L no's.
Cuynet Birol:  Cuynet has been keeping and breeding discus in Turkey for over 25 years and has recently successfully completed Andrew Soh's judging exam.
Sid Adams:  Sid is an experienced aquarium hobbyist and discus judge who has been breeding discus and angel fish since the mid 90's.

Other Attractions
We will also have the best selection of discus and other tropical fish available for purchase and a huge selection of dried goods and fishkeeping equipment from some of the best suppliers in the UK!  The following will be at the show:
• Discus South
• Devotedly Discus
• Daydream Discus
• Underworld Products
• Practical Fishkeeping
• Interpet
• NT Labs
• Tetra UK
• BestLight Productions (Germany)
• Yorkshire Beefheart Producers
• ZM Systems
• Australian Black Worms
• Mars Fishcare Europe
• Premier Morphs (Reptiles)
• New Era Aquaculture
• Overnight Tropicals
• The BIDKA Team and members

We are hoping to have stands from other significant fish clubs including UKAPS, the British Cichlid Association and the Catfish Study Group.  There will be raffles tickets each day with many top prizes including fish keeping equipment and other dried goods.

Show Dinner
We will be holding our show dinner on the Saturday evening at the Thistle Hotel, this is open to everyone but numbers will be strictly limited so book soon! We will have an auction on the evening where there will a variety of fun items to bid on.

To get further details go to http://british-discus-show.com/ or http://forum.bidka.org/ or email to info@british-discus-show.com