# Why are victorians not sp common



## slowlips (Apr 17, 2009)

I have a general question why are the victorian cichlids are not so common in terms of availability in pet stores,no. of posts in this section or even in auctions and online auctions like aquabid very few people post their fish.Is there is any reason.The victorians have very good colors.I am asking this because I am planning to start a vic tank with 2-3 species.


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## shaguars7 (Apr 12, 2009)

slowlips i fear the reason for that you will soon find out. I do not think nor have i heard that you can do multiple species in a tank for they crossbreed pretty much on the regular. Another reason for the lack of people and stores not selling them is because all fish come from breeders or hobbyists because they do not allow the exportation of them from africa anymore. I also think that has not helped the bloodlines of the fish and people are somewhat shy on buying fish that could be so many different fish kind of muddled together. I know from personel experience it took me a very long time to find haplochromis sp"ruby greens" that were from a good bloodline from a respected breeder. All of these problems make for the problems you are finding out now.


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## hollyfish2000 (Aug 23, 2007)

Slowlips -- I, too, think this is a good question. But I don't know that I agree with the rationale that their propensity to interbreed make them unattractive to LFS or fishowners -- the issue of interbreeding is present in many (all?) species from Africa that are still quite available. I'm also not certain that the average fish-keeper would know a "muddled" bloodline if they saw one . . .

My thoughts (purely my opinion) is that they may not be considered as attractive (they have a very distinct look that perhaps people don't like). And they can be considerably more aggressive than peacocks, so peacocks may just be "easier" to deal with, especially for those fishkeepers who don't like aggression. But mostly I think it's because they don't do well in all male set-ups as the males tend not to color up well in the absence of females (unlike peacocks). Many people have all male peacock/hap tanks rather than breeding set-ups and Vics wouldn't work. I dunno. Just my two cents, for what it's worth.

I have a family set-up of ruby greens, and I like them a lot.


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