Talk:Cichlid

From Academic Kids

Brackish? That's certainly not true of many of the cichlids I've known... which ones is this supposed to be about? -- OlofE

The only cichlids species in asia might be brackish. I think I remember something like this. One should look this up. It's, however, the rare exception. -- Doegi

OK, I looked that up, and seems there are some more, including some Cichlasomas. - Doegi

dang, that does ring a bell... wonder where I might have seen that... it's really a pain to try to remember something you read 20-25 years ago, hehe. Now... do some of the haplochromis or similar go into brackish water too? H burtoni for instance lives in anything up to well cooked stews it seems... maybe there are Tilapias that do? - OlofE 14:56 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

What does Cichlids (Cichlidae) are a family or perciform mean? -- Zoe

Perciform means perch-like, nothing else. I think it's just a typo, but I'm not sure how to correct it. -- OlofE

In this case perciform means of the order Perciformes, and is being used to indicate their taxonomy. I've changed it accordingly. Much of the rest of the opening needs work. Besides being run-on, it for instance doesn't mention Asia, which is mentioned in the lists below.

Excellent. Asia not being mentioned isn't really that serious, is it... I mean it's what, 2 species out of how many hundred? OlofE 19:13 Apr 27, 2003 (UTC)

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Both oscar and JD are VERY common at least in parts of Europe. I was in a store yesterday that had both, and only about a dozen other south american species. It may vary a bit for different European countries but I certainly don't think it's a general truth that they are "rare" or anything. My experience are from Swedish stores and aquarists - don't know where they're supposed to be rare. I bred both when I was a kid, and they were always hard to sell because they were always in stock... - OlofE 14:19 31 May 2003 (UTC)

Well, sure you find them at stores, easily, at least in the better ones. Sometimes you even find them in the small aquaria corner of a big super market here as well, but they are sized 3-4 cm and going to be bought by people who like their look (especially oscars) and are going to keep then in 80-100 cm tanks which I treat as heavy cruelty to them, given the actual size of adults.
However, what I meant with 'rare' is, how many aquaria keepers do actually keep them? I personally don't like the phrase "Some notable cichlids are ...". What makes these 4 species so special (btw, I'd prefer using scientific names as primary reference in the actual article). A regular aquaria keeper won't be able to keep JD and Oscar anyways due to the size constraints. (and cichlid keeper that knows about them won't look this info up in a Wikipedia article ;-) )
If you define "notable" as in "you've probably seen this in a friend's tank or already kept them yourself", you should keep the angels (and maybe the discus, as those are rather well known even for non-aquarists), but I'd rather suggest listing Rams or Kribs here, as that is what the "common" owner has in his tank, and not the big SA cichlids. If you are going to list JD and Oscars because they are, well, your favourites, may I also add my Tropheus, and the next person his Malawi cichlids, ... ? - Doegi

"may I also add my " - Hell yeah! I've been wanting to do a proper outline of the family for ages but always stopped because I'd overdo it:-) Actually, I'd much rather write about the rift valley fish, as I haven't had a south american in my tanks for over two decades...

I'd prefer to have a group of southamericans (incl the ones listed), a tilapia group, a tanganyika group, Tropheus, mbuna, haps and at least one more generic african group, each group with one or two representatives. Or each group could have its own article but I sort of dislike that since most of them are not really known by name either as group or species - well, mbuna, blunthead and princess of burundi exempted. But there's lots of material here that I think is certainly intersting enough for inclusion in the pedia.

How about dropping the "notable" paragraph entirely and flesh out the following listing instead? (And the JD link goes to just an article about the man, not the fish iirc - not very good...)

Anyway - just add I say. OlofE 17:28 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

what's a blunthead again? ;-) The listing with 2-3 representatives each is a great idea, I very much prefer this over the "notable" paragraph. - Doegi Tue Jun 3 17:37:09 CEST 2003

Blunthead is Tropheus moorii in US parlance, unless I'm mistaken. Or is it bluntnose? Let's put together a neat list of nice, popular representatives and get this written up then:-) OlofE 14:56 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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Here's an attempt at an overview to replace the "notable cichlids" passage and the current overview. I'm sloppy with scientific names here, cause this is how I learned them some decades ago... Some sort of plan for what species even deserve their own pages might be in order. I'm also convinced the rather unique endemic populations of lakes Malawi & Tanganyika deserve specific articles. Anyway, speak up and let's get this in place,

The main groups of cichlids kept in aquariums and some of the more common or characteristic species,

• American cichlids
  • Heroines, acaras, eartheaters, and other large cichlids
    • Jack Dempsey (Cichlasoma octofasciatum)
    • Convict cichlid (Cichlasoma nigrofasciatum)
    • Firebelly (Cichlasoma meeki)
    • Oscar (fish) (Astronotus ocellatus)
    • Eartheater (Geophagus jurupari)
  • Dwarf cichlids (Apistogramma etc)
    • Cockatoo cichlid (Apistogramma cacatoides)
    • Butterfly cichlid (Papliochromis ramirezi)
  • Other South American cichlids
    • Angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare)
    • Discus (Symphysodon discus)
• African cichlids
  • Rift valley cichlids
    • Lake Tanganyika
      • Princess of Burundi (Neolamprologus brichardi)
      • Blunthead cichlid (Tropheus moorii)
      • Cyrtocara moorii
      • Julidochromis sp., Chalinochromis sp. (e.g. Julidochromis ornatus)
    • Lake Malawi
      • Mbuna
        • Malawi Zebra (Pseudotropheus zebra)
        • Auratus (Melanochromis auratus)
      • (Haplochromis complex)
        • (Aulonocara sp.)
        • Dolphin cichlid (Haplochromis moorei)
        • "Malawi eyebiter" (Haplochromis compressicepts)
    • Lake Victoria
    • Lake Rudolph and other
  • Tilapias
    • Sarotherodon mossambicus
    • Tilapia zillii
  • Other African cichlids
    • Egyptian mouthbrooder
    • Red cichlid (Hemichromis bimaculatus)
• Asian cichlids

Does that make a decent coverage? If we could get some smallish images of the species listed, that would make a great introduction to cichlids, IMO.

And, some articles that need better integration (or creation); mouthbrooding, rift valley lakes, endemic, some comments about population evolution and diversity (re: T. moorii especially, but also the mouthbrooding monopoly of L Malawi). OlofE 17:37 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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Hey, the article has improved a lot. Great! I love it. User:Doegi 11:15 05.12.2004