It’s with great privilege and pride that I salute Dick Stratton for 25 years of service to TFH and to the aquarium hobby in his capacity as Q&A utility infielder—that masked, unidentified man who answered any and all questions about tropical fish and this great hobby of ours. Though never with a byline (I was amazed to discover, about 10 years ago, that Dick was the guy behind the Q&As, originally called “Mail
Call” and “Salt Solutions”), Dick is as unassuming and humble as they come. When he first started answering
questions, it was to help out the editorial staff members, who were bogged down with them. At that time they
arrived in cardboard boxes, whereas today most arrive as email.
Unless you’re a dyed-in-the-wool cichlidophile and member
of the American Cichlid Association (ACA), you may not be
aware of Dick’s pivotal importance in the American cichlid
hobby, and hence the American aquarium hobby, which I will
happily share with you now on the occasion of his recent
retirement from TFH’s monthly Q&A forum. In a nutshell,
Dick Stratton founded the American Cichlid Association
some 42 years ago, in 1966! And he has served as a lifelong
cheerleader of all things aquatic and aquarian, particularly his
beloved cichlids.
Actually, you can read about some of this yourself if you have
the October 2003 TFH, in which Dick guest-wrote an article for
my column “Cichlidophiles,” entitled “The Amazing ACA.” While
this article’s purpose was to extol the American Cichlid Association
as an organization (Dick is ever the champion and promoter
of our cause!), it is also a brief recounting of the history of the
ACA, arguably the preeminent national hobby organization in this
country. And Dick’s role takes center stage—though not explicitly,
as befits his humility.
Dick writes:
As with many things, determining the beginning point of the ACA
is a bit arbitrary. The truth is that the association began in the mind
of Dr. Albert J. Klee. Around the middle of the last century—about
1965, actually—Al Klee told me that he was thinking of forming a
cichlid group similar to Scheel’s Round...Colonel Jorgen Scheel was
a Scandinavian specialist in killifish [and] the author of Rivulins
of the Old World, among other publications. Scheel’s Round was a
group composed of very experienced aquarists who received a journal
of sorts from Colonel Scheel and occasionally contributed to it. It was
international and probably the most elite group in the hobby at the time.
I was ecstatic that Al was considering such a thing. Cichlids were little
respected in those days (by most tropical fish hobbyists), yet I couldn’t
get enough of them.
The idea of a Klee’s Round, or whatever it would be called, was an
exciting concept to me. Not only would it provide lots of information on
cichlids, it would help give cichlids themselves some status, as Al Klee
was one of the premier hobbyists of the time and a prolific writer. Fate
intervened, however, as Dr. Klee became involved in the editorship of a
magazine and would not be able to go ahead with his plans with the
cichlid group. I was sufficiently disappointed that I decided to plow on
with the plan on my own....
The problem was that I didn’t have the knowledge or the status
of either Klee or Scheel. The idea of a Stratton’s Round would have
been laughed out of existence very quickly. The next best thing, to
me, was to build a small group modeled after the American Killifish
Association...I had to start small. I didn’t charge dues; I asked for
stamped self-addressed envelopes. When the word got around, I got
