Vieja hartwegi is one of the most recently-described species of Vieja and one of the four species that inhabit the rivers of southern Mexico and Guatemala. For aquarium aficionados of Central American cichlids V. hartwegi is a great choice since it is one of the two smallest species (together with V. breidohri, also covered in this article). Yet, it is wonderfully colored and a group can be housed and even easily bred in a small aquarium. Juan Miguel Artigas Azas tells us how.
Apistogramma agassizii is a diminutive South American dwarf cichlid known for its spade-shaped tail and bright coloration. It has long been known to science and to the cichlid hobby and is found throughout the Amazon drainage in many populations so variable that some ichthyologists regard it as a complex of several distinct species. Since the 1980s the color diversity in the males has further increased by tank-bred color varieties. Wolfgang Staeck presents photos of many of these natural and man-made varieties and reviews the care and breeding of this popular species in the aquarium.
In his many trips to Lake Malawi over the years, Larry Johnson was particularly taken by his dives at Taiwanee Reef. The very colorful mbuna species Chindongo saulosi is only found on this reef, and nowhere else in the lake. This species has been very popular in the Malawi cichlid trade and became heavily overfished. In 2012, he learned of a trip with Ad Konings to place Chindongo saulosi back on the reef. Larry recounts his multi-year experiences repopulating the reef.
Chad is an infrequently visited place largely due to its recent political history and the fact that part of it is controlled by the infamous Nigerian Boko Haram rebels. It is no surprise then that fish exports from this part of the world have been rare. Oliver Lucanus shares his recent difficult but ultimately successful importation and breeding efforts of newly-discovered haplochromines from Lake Boukou in northern Chad.
In the July issue of Cichlid News, Don Danko shared his personal history acquiring and breeding Central American cichlids circa 1980/1990s. In this second and concluding installment of said history, Don describes his very many trips to Mexico many with CN author Juan Miguel Artigas Azas and a list of other well-known international aquarists. In 1987 he made the first of many trips to Mexico which included collecting and returning alive a long list of species never seen before in the hobby.
From Laif, Ad and myself: Enjoy your cichlids!!
