We are a father and son who both love Malawi-cichlids.
I (Johan) had my first aquarium with my 8th birthday, which was a birthday present from my parents,
a type with the sizes 40x30x30, a beautiful present. Like many others,
I put guppies, platyfish, mollies and other fish in it, and a
small light (standing on a piece of glass which lied over the aquarium)
was taking care of the primitive day and night sequence. After a year,
I could get a larger aquarium from people known by my parents, and I
loved it (for that time is was a large aquarium, measuring 100x40x40).
At the end of the sixties, cichlids were told to be very bad fish,
meaning they were agressive, they would eat your vegetation and dig
holes. That time, there were only South-American species available,
which I liked, but I decided again to put guppies and more fish
like those in it. By then, my interest in cichlids was born. Since
that time, I visited the local store a lot, and as years passed, I
saw the first Malawi-cichlids in stores. If I am correct, the first
species I saw were Melanochromis Auratus and Labeotropheus Trewavasae.
From the moment I saw them, I fell in love with these cichlids.
Still it lasted until the end of the eighties before I became serious
about keeping Malawi-cichlids. Before that time I was too busy with
school, going out and other things a young person should do. In the
middle eighties, I got married, got kids and my first Malawi-cichlids
came in my aquarium. At that time, I had an aquarium of 120x40x40 with
the couples listed below.
After a while I noticed this was off limits: there were too much large
fish in my aquarium, and the Aulonocara began to intersect . I also had two
empty aquaria of one meter each, so I decorated them and used them to
put the Aulonocara in, so they stopped intersecting. I put Baenschi and
Maylandi in one, Stuartgranti in the other, and Jacobfreibergi with
Borleyi were staying in the same aquarium they were in before.
By then it really started for me. After a while, the fish began to have
offspring, so I decided to buy another aquarium to put the small ones in.
This way, I raised the young ones and sold them, until I had to stop
in the end of the nineties, because I had no more room for the aquaria.
Since that time, I only have my main aquarium (200x60x50) left.
At this moment (september 2008), some years later again, we`ve started to place some breeding tanks in our home, because we`ve got some more space in the house last year. Mainly this all because of the enthusiasm of my son. In these tanks we`re gonna try breeding some (in trade) rare "mbuna`s".
For some years I've been taking more and more pictures of my fish and I
love to show them to other Malawi lovers.
Which brings me to my son, Thimo. Since he was born he has been
fascinated by the different kinds of Malawi cichlids we've had and since autumn 2006 he`s keeping his own fish in his own tank. He loves the
Mbuna types en he wants to focus on them in the future. Meanwhile he`s got a bigger tank (since july 2008) in which he keeps "mbuna`s", of course. Thimo likes to
work with the computer as well, so we decided to make this website
together. In that way, we can learn from eachother.
I hope you enjoy this site, all pictures are self-made. If you like to,
you may leave comments in our guestbook.
