fish past and present

[fishmommy]

I've kept a lot of interesting species over the years.
Here are some pics, mostly specializing in African rift lake fish.

these tiny fish live in snail shells in nature. this species is extremely agressive and always bite me, though they are too small to do any damage to me, thankfully!



a different shell dwelling species


mouthbrooders keep their babies in their mouths until they are old enough to fend for themselves. heres mom calling the babies back in because she feels threatened by me standing there

this mother fish has a mouth full of babies. see the eyes thru her skin?


these males grow their spots as they age


I never had much luck with peacocks but here's a couple



this fish is over a foot long


this fish won me some prizes


this fish I had imported and managed to re-popularize the species in the trade many years ago - it is now a popular species! I probably sold 300 of these from one pair.


hmmm....this fish is over a foot long too


I havent kept many mbuna but am about to get into them some more


two of the only fish that supposedly have green coloration...and they're not very green



I also love breeding art shade giant snails. very prolific breeders but messy!


fish yawn. this is a soft water species


also soft water - mother angelfish tending eggs


rare and delicate, chocolate gouramis are one of the more difficult species


one of the most common 'challenging' species for soft water


enough for now, people are begging for mercy probably

[cday2inflorida]

I worked for Beldt's Wholesalers in Hazlewood, Mo for a few years. They shipped fish all over the midwest. I was in charge of the African Cichlids and some of the South American's such as discus and the dwarfs.
Of course, if you work with them you keep them
I slowly got rid of aquariums over the years and now only have one that is heavily planted. I keep a few apistogramma species, a few rams, tetras and a little school of iriatherina.
The aquarium is more for the plants then the fish.

[fishmommy]

I am in the same boat sorta. got into aquariums for the plants, but fell in love with African cichlids for about 10 years. these days I have scaled back significantly. I figure one more round of Africans and then I'll switch to coral after they've lived out their lifespans (8-10 years)

you must have seen some awesome fish!

[cday2inflorida]

They stuff come in from everywhere. The cichlid room had stuff I had never seen before.
I remember getting a shipment and opening a box of brichardi and transcriptus when they were first introduced.
They had breeding pairs of rare tropheus. I remember seeing many t. moorii that weren't even named. Beautiful black with white spots and there was another solid black with a patch of red like a heart.