Rare cichlids in our hobby

[sicj]

Hi all

Was just looking at some photos of rare cichlids on the web and was thinking.

What would be the top 10 rare cichlids in our hobby at the moment.

I know that alot of species come and go.

What do you guys think

[japes]

Australia, or globally?

[kris_trico]

african , sth. american, native ?

[Andrew]

It would be a very hard thing to try and guage. However, we should automatically exclude anything on the allowable import list, as we can always bring more of any of those in.

Non-allowable imports that have become rare in Oz are legion. We could be here for a long time adding to the list as things come to mind.

However, if you mean rarest Cichlids worldwide because of scarcity in nature, I don't know off-hand - although I imagine that true Pterophyllum altum would be on that top ten list.

[sicj]

Any type of cichlids but within Australia that we rarely or never see.

[Andrew]

There are very many... It would be hard to narrow it down to a list of 10, as there are more than 10 which are equally hard to find.

[intern1]

Lets refine search to African cichlids in lake Malawi and tang found in the oz hobby so 2 seperate lists

[mcloughlin2]

You can't write a list up like this. Almost any african cichlids apart from the bread and butter species of the hobby wuld be classed as rare.

I feel bad everytime I sell quality colonies for fear next time I want them I want be able to find the same quality. Unfortunately its the way of the hobby, luckily there are those who get bitten by the bug and end up with garages full of tanks and bring some species back into the hobby.

[Andrew]

Whilst there are quite a lot of Malawi and Tang Cichlids that could be mentioned, cichlids from Central/South America, Asia and Lake Victoria should be included.

It'd be more like the top 100 than top ten though...

[ctaylor]

Nandopsis, Crenicichla, Chalinochromis, Lepidolamprologus, Pseudotropheus, honestly there are dozens of species...

not to mention things that are just lost/deformed from inbreeding...

[Josh]

I think we should just make a list of what's not rare, Everything else is!

[firthy13]

Malawi wise, i think the true wild form aulonocara species are some of the hardest to come across because of interbreeding and hybridization.

champsochromis caeruleus also??

have personally never seen one in real life.

[Link2Hell]

species I've had or see out here that I can't find anymore

Lamp christyi

Lamp pleuromacalatus

Lamp cunningtoni

Limnotilapia dardenii

Hap labrosus

Mylochromis incola

Labidachromis pallidus

Melanochromis exasperatus

Krobia itanyi

Aequidens paraguensis

Aquidens tetrameris

Guianacara geayi

Crenicichla saxitalis

Heros psitticus

Geophagus daemon

Gymnogeophagus meridionalis

Nandopsis motaguense

Chris

[Andrew]

And I'll add...

Neolamprologus falcicula (walteri)

Metriaclima (Ps.) elegans

Heros cyanoguttatus (True Texas)

Vieja maculicauda (haven't seen any that aren't hybrids for aaaages)

Taenicara candidi (not sure if these can be imported)

Aequidens portalegrense

Neolamprologus mustax (I think these are allowable)

Copadichromis quadrimaculatus

Gymnogeophagus australis

Gymnogeophagus rhabdotus

Etroplus suratensis

And more to come as I think of them

Don't worry about Mel. exasperatus, Chris... I have them and so do a few others around here... They'll be coming back into the hobby soon.

Cheers,

Andrew.

[Euan Edwards]

Neolamp falcicula walteri and cygnus

Vieja maculicauda

Neolamprologus mustax (I think these are allowable)

Etroplus suratensis

The above are still around, thankfully.

Spp I can think of to add;

Tomo sieboldi

Leipideolamp boulengeri

Satan acuticeps

[Andrew]

Who has walteri? I would very much like to get some and proliferate them. Not seen in Sydney for years!

[sicj]

Just a question about Petros.

Does anyone know why we cannot import different types into the country.

They are so similar to tropheus.

[Andrew]

I'm not sure if they're allowable or not... I think one or two species are.

Trouble with Petrotilapia is that they are so frightfully aggressive that many colonies implode quickly because they're not often kept in tanks big enough with lots of territories.

[sicj]

I was reffering to Petrochromis from Tanganyika.

There are so many of them and they are similar to tropheus yet we only have i think 1 allowable in the country.

Would be nice to see more of them.

[Josh]

Only one Petro is allowed.

[Andrew]

Excuse my senior moment, folks... I too meant Petrochromis - not sure why I put Petrotilapia.

If I remember rightly, Petrochromis trewavasae is the allowable species. Beautiful fish, but not very nice to each other. It is these I have seen in colonies that have killed each other down to one fish...

[mcsx]

Depends, I've seen petro's that are much better than tropheus colony's in aggression, they can both go either way.

Just depends if you get lucky, or unlucky.

Cheers Mark~

[gianniz]

isn't rarest generally the most costly???

if so what is the most expensive cichlid in Oz???

fucifer/featherfins???

[kris_trico]

what would be the most rarest featherfin (tang).?

[Andrew]

The rarest is not necessarily the most expensive... There are some varieties of Ophthalmotilapia and Cyathopharynx that we never see around anymore, whereas Benthochromis tricoti is around in small numbers and is still much more expensive than any other featherfin.

To ask what is the rarest Cichlid in the hobby is a bit of an unrealistic question, I'm afraid. As we mentioned before, the list would be a long one of equally rare species.

Another thing to consider is that many of what we've talked about in this thread are allowable imports, so all it would take for these to be common again would be an importer with the right contacts.

I believe the important thing to do is proliferate the rarer ones that are not on the import list, so that we'll have them around to enjoy for a long time to come.