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ill post this here,cause these 2 storys are about my chiclids,i just want to say that im sick to death and fed up with miss leading advice from lfs.its happen heaps of times but the 2 that stand out to me,1st,was when i had just started the hobby,i only had 1 tank,with a mixture of chiclids,so i went to A LFS,to see waht else i could put in with the 3 oscars they sold me(get this for a 55 gal tank)and i had other little chiclids in there to(way over stocked but i new NOTHING at this stage,only what they told me)anyway,they sold me a red devil,and said it would be fine on there with the fish i had,so i put him in,and go to bed that night,the next morning,the only other fishes thet were alive was a small convict and 1 oscar near beaten to death,he ripped out all my plants knocked over decore just went nuts,man i was ropeable,so i went back and expressed my angerthe 2nd time,was when i went in to ask for some stresscoat for my severum,(bit knocked around from a fiesty male),when he said he didnt have any he tryed to sell me some methylene blue and when i said thats a bit much just for a few nicks,(i meant trashing my bio filter)he said what do you mean,and when i explained what a bio filter did,and by addind m/blue just trashes it,he started to tell me that was bulldust,and i should listen to him as hes been in the fish game for 2 decades,anyway after leaving,i couldnt beleave the extent he went to,all to sell me 1 botle of treatment2 decades in the fish game,and he new nothing about how a bio filter works,sometimes they will tell you ANYTHING to get that sale.once i found a decent shop with people who are vetrans in this hobby,it all changed and things picked up for me,sometimes these type of things can be disheartening,but now i live for my hobby(and my daughter too)anyone else got any stories like this,lets here em

Once again, it's one of those features of the pet trade that seriously annoys me. People with little or no expertise selling wholly inappropriate fishes to unsuspecting newcomers and precipitating disaster as a consequence.

A RESPONSIBLE dealer will tell you straight away that the vast majority of medium to large Central & South American Cichlids are strongly territorial, with varying degrees of aggression ranging from Firemouths at one end of the scale (feisty but manageable) up to the likes of Black Belts, Red Devils and various Nandopsis species at the other, which are fishes possessed of a temperament that isn't so much volcanic as positively pyroclastic.

Red Devils are best kept in a species aquarium, unless you have the funds to house them in a truly colossal setup. I'd consider it experimental and risky housing them with other Cichlids even in a 250 gallon aquarium, though you can find specimens that will coexist without too much trouble in that kind of space. A pair of Red Devils DEFINITELY need their own aquarium, because when they're breeding, they will tolerate NO other fishes in the vicnity with the possible exception of dither fishes that are too fast to be caught. Even then, chances are that Red Devils will find a way of dealing with them in a confined space.

I decided to check The Cichlid Room (Hokese, you would do well to go here]http://www.cichlidae.com/[/link] and bookmark it, as this site is run by REAL experts in the field) and see if anyone had any notes on Red Devils. Lo and behold, Dr Paul Loiselle has come to the rescue with [link=this piece which describes these fishes in considerable detail. Oh, and he mentions that they're likely to turn all but a VERY large aquarium into a species aquarium by exterminating the occupants if they are housed inappropriately.

As far as Cichlid expertise is concerned, some of the names to look out for (all of whom have articles on that site by the way) are Ad Konings (who has observed Lake Malawi Cichlids in the wild over more than a decade as well as kept and bred more fishes than most of us have had hot dinners), Paul Loiselle (one of the foremost experts on Central Americans), Juan Miguel Artigas Azas (another aquarist and scientist with a peerless reputation) and Rusty Wessel (who had Theraps wesseli named after him in recognision of his contribution to the understanding of Cichlids). Other contributors to that site include Pam Chin and Mary Bailey, who have robust reputations as knowledgeable Cichlid keepers in their own right dating back a good few years. If in doubt about a particular species, these are the people I turn to when there are gaps in my own database, so to speak, and thus far they've never let me down.



Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

i understand that it is not at all fair for the lfs to do this(never happened to me) but you should have done a bit of research into what fish you want, what fish you could pu in your tank and whether they are compatible.

I have been there myself HOKESE. Not to the extent that you have been, but in the sense that as a new fish keeper I didn't know that I was to do research. They had the signs at the store that mentioned something about the fish & what other fish they went with (Wal-Mart) but like many others I had seen all sorts of combinations of fish in other peoples tanks & it seemed to work for them.

How it goes in a regular pet or fish store I forget cause it has been years since I've been in one. Truthfully......... I'm afraid to set foot in one now cause I remember all the pretty fish & tanks they had & I don't want to become dissatisfied with what I have now!
My tank is already overstocked & I don't want to see any more pretty fish or tanks that I will want!

But back on topic....... I was never told that buying fish was something to take seriously or that needed any research. It was just something that people did when they got the urge. They bought the tank & a few pretty fish & if they had any questions they asked the sales person. After all that's what the sales person is there for right?

There are no signs up anywhere that mention that a fish tank is not just a pretty toy, but is something to be taken seriously. After all, a lot of us had one when we were a kid, be it a bowl or a small tank & it was up to us to take care of it. Parents had enough other stuff to be concerned with.

What it comes down to is some people need to be taught certain things that other people just take for granted. Cali's kind take it for granted that if you want to do something, you study it first, then give it your all. Other people like myself, have seen fish tanks used as elaborate toys. Something to have till you tire of it or the fish die cause you don't know how to take proper care of it. The importance of taking care of it or the lives of the fish has never been stressed to us........... therefore we took it too lightly. In other words, it never really sank in. Some people are just brighter than others...... they can catch on to certain ideas or principles easily. Other people have a harder time of it. Some of us need more time, or explaining, or teaching, or example.

We are all created so differently.......... even in the way our brains work & the way we have learned to think or have been taught to think. We are all a work in progress.

My LFS can be pretty useless, when we 1st started out 15 years or so ago we would believe what advice we were given, nowadays we know that most of what they tell people is utter bulls**t designed to sell, not caring who has what with what as long as they make a sale.
We now 'google' everything if we need info (that's how I found this site).
My LFS owner now drops his prices for me when I ask him how much something is as he knows that I won't pay his stupid prices otherwise
Here's a couple of examples from my LFS:

Yellow Labs (Labidochromis Caeruleus) up for sale and labelled as 'Black top African Cichlids'

Stood talking to the owner one day and he said he would love to start selling shelldwellers - went back a few weeks later and offered him some Lamp. Ocellatus and he didn't know what they are....

Noticed a Nile Perch a couple of weeks ago in a tank on it's own, the owner said to me it doesn't do much I'm going to move it in with other fish - it's now in with fish that it would eat in the wild

All African Cichlids are named African Cichlids - no other names accept for the Yellow Labs

All Synodontis are named Catfish, all types of Plecos are named Plecos.......

No wonder we've started travelling miles to buy decent stock.....LOL

my husband went out one day and came back with a cute little fish for our 10gal(we were still very knew) i had just found this site and thought i'd look it up. it turned out to be a red tailed shark well i took it stright back to the store. it took forever for them to take it back. the guy told me that it wouldnt get big if i kept it in the 10gal. he said he had 5 in a 20gal and had them for years and non were over 2in long. after agueing for about 30min i got my money back. i dont go there any more.

and Rusty Wessel (who had Theraps wesseli named after him in recognision of his contribution to the understanding of Cichlids)

Just to clear this up, Theraps wesseli was named after Rusty not only because of his contribution to the understanding of cichlids, but also because Rusty was the first documented person to ever see the species and through 5 years of persistence in returning to the same collection point, he was also the first (at least in the first group) to collect the species and bring it into the US. I'd assume what happened from there is that he sent a few specimens to Dr. Robert Rush Miller who completed the official description of the species, naming it after Rusty for discovering it.

Rusty was also involved in a collection trip this past year with several other well known experts in the field of New World cichlids where a possible new species of Parachromis was discovered. I know they sent fin clippings to Dr. Miller and they may have also sent specimens as well to determine if it was indeed a new species or rather a variant of an existing species or even possibly a naturally occuring hybrid. The fish in body shape resembles P. managuense more closely than the other Parachromis, but I think they said that P. friedrichsthalli was the only Parachromis species known to be native to the region. I'm sure we'll know more about this in the hopefully not-too-distant future.

Well, like every other fish enthuiast I was also given terrible advice at 1st. I remeber having bala sharks and iridescent sharks in a 10G that didn't go too well. I was given the advice at one of the big chain stores. Anyways, from what I've seen the chain stores just have bad info. I was at one of the chain stores that start with a 'P' last week and for every fish that grows large they estimated about half the size. Pacu's @24", RD's @8", JD's & Texas @6", Convicts @4", etc... There stocking advice was also off and they had african rift lake cichlids with their New World's. You would think that with all the technology nowadays they would create a database or even support a site so that they can use it as the "official website of ..." and have it available to customers and employees. My LFS' are not that bad & are pretty on with their advice most of the time, guess I'm lucky in that regards

By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
Socrates-
I happen to have become a philosopher

yeah its not a very good fealing,when it happen to me,i hadent even beem a fish keeper for a week,i seen a mates tank,and that was it for me,i was hooked,(he had big oscars and was hand feeding them fedder fish0).so i thought ill grab a tank now get some fish,so off i went to my lfs,it took disaster before i jumped on the net and done some reaserch,on what i could keep,and that led me to this site,so from then on i learnt my valueable lesson,and got my info from this site and a few different chiclid keeping books i got,still to this day,ill only ask my lfs store as a last resort,even then ill come to this site for advice from you guys, before i do anything im not sure onat the end of the day,i dont thing they care(lfs),as long as they make there cash to pay the billsbut ive found the best way of learning is time and effort,and some basic reserch does go a long wayonce i done some net surfing,and some reading,and started keeping the rite fish together, in the rite tank,of course it all went well.when u start the hobby u put faith in these store owners or workers and most of them no nothingi steared my mate away from (ill just say a large fish store chain in my area,dont wont to badmouth the store),because i said they are NOT FISH KEEPERS,they are sales people ,like i said most of witch no nothingbut what can you do,i just tryed to find a good store that i felt was experienced,and when i did find them i kept going to them..

ps,thanx to calilasseia for the link,great always after professional info,thanx heaps

First - thanks for the update to the knowledge base Jason. Always welcome ... hat tip there.

So Rusty Wessel was the first to find and collect the species? Hmm, not surprising that it was named after him then. Quite a few fishes bear that kind of labelling - off the top of my head I can think of Gymnocorymbus ternetzi, Corydoras cochui, Parachromis loisellei, Serrasalmus geryi, Telmatherina ladigesi, Ladigesia roloffi (named after TWO distinguised persons in the field!) and Paracheirodon axelrodi as bearing the names of people who went out and collected new species (and in some cases performed a LOT of professional research in the field - Dr Paul Loiselle springing VERY much to mind here as a Cichlid expert with impeccable credentials).

Next, the LFS question. I'm VERY fortunate it seems - for 30 years my LFS was run by a man who took care to stock fishes that would fit in modest aquaria as the 'staples' of his trade, and only obtained fishes such as Oscars or Bala Sharks by special order. He took time to learn which of his customers were newcomers (who were then guided towards fishes with a good chance of survival in a beginner's aquarium) and which were the experienced 'old hands' who would house fishes such as Oscars in decent quarters because they knew what they were doing. When he retired, the man who took over adopted the same approach and still does. In fact, sometimes he asks me for advice about something new and interesting he's seen at the wholesalers to make sure that [1] he can sell it without bad repercussions because it won't be a tank buster or have awkward requirements that a beginner won't be able to meet, and [2] it'll prove to be popular once the 'awkward issues' questions have been dealt with. Thus far, the only run ins he's had have been with people who are, quite frankly, complete and utter dipsticks who shouldn't be allowed to own any live creature - the sensible people among his customers have gone away satisfied.

However, he's also trading in parrots, which he's been breeding himself for some time, so he's also familiar with the less than delightful aspects of CITES paperwork and ensuring that his stock is proplerly licenced and above board. But because he's breeding his own, he's able to offer juvenile African Grey Parrots, for example, for about half the price they would be elsewhere, complete with all the paperwork signed, sealed and approved by the authorities (and here in the UK they're pretty tough on people who mess about with CITES paperwork - it's the equivalent of a felony offence in the States, and carries jail time if you don't dot all the 'i's and cross all the 't's properly). So, he's in a position to handle special orders for species that carry a bureaucratic loading as well.

Needless to say, if anyone asks to buy an Oscar, his first question is "have you got a 6ft aquarium to put it in?"



Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

yes i aggree,6 foot and top filtrartion,anyway the lfs i go to now arent to bad,better than the ones close to my house,they are just bad fish keepers at bestanyone else got any storys or comments

Recommendation that my LFS hands out for long term Oscar maintenance is a 6ft x 2ft x 2ft aquarium - that's around 150 UK gallons or 180 US gallons. I think an Oscar would be pretty happy with that much space to play with.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

sounds good,in regards to the bad info,it can be really disheartening to a new comer who has no idea,when things go drasticly wrong,and left thinking why has this happened the people at the fish shop said it would be finethank god im not at that stage anymore