# The History of African Cichlids



## whalebite (Jan 11, 2017)

So It has been a while since I last posted.
I was curious if anyone new of a source or new about some of the history of certain groups of cichlids in the hobby? I know the lakes have been known about for a long time, but I am interested in when they started getting exported, hopefully from each lake, like when was the first Africans brought in, from Malawi, Tanganyika, and Victoria. Thanks for any help.


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## BC in SK (Aug 11, 2012)

Lake Malawi, it's sometime in the 1960's that they 1st started being imported. This article mentions mid to late '60's: http://www.cichlidae.com/article.php?id=275
I know auaratus was already available here in the late '60's as my oldest brother had, had them. The Goldstein book "Introduction to the cichlids" came out in 1970 and shows what would have been imported up to that point. These were brand new to the hobby and show a few pictures of small mbuna like auratus and Labeotropheus, and "zebras". 
But it's really the mid '70's when the Malawi really "exploded" in the hobby. You could walk in to any LFS and there was row after row of all kinds of new Malawi cichlids....and virtually no SA/CA cichlid for sale other then Angelfish and keyholes.
I don't really know any specifics about "Victoreans" but some had already been imported in the 1960's. About the only color picture I had of these kinds was Haplochromis burtoni, so in the early '70's I called them 'yellow burtoni', 'green burtoni', ect., as there were no pictures to match them to.


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## BC in SK (Aug 11, 2012)

This is something I found very interesting and others might find the same. " The History of Cichlids in the Hobby". A talk by Chuck Rambo to the Sacramento Aquarium society: http://www.1src.com/video/t_739KiVLpocg
Most of it deals with the technology of the hobby through the years but some of the info does relate to your question.
36 minute mark: In 1907 the chanchitto (Australoheros species) was already in the hobby in Germany. Possibly the 1st cichlid in the hobby.
When I was a young kid, pictures in old books made me desire this fish....but it had long vanished from the hobby and was not available until more recent years.
46 minute mark: St. Louise, Missouri, 1933, Angelfish, Jewel cichlid and orange chromide were available. Jewel cichlid might be the 1st African cichlid available in the hobby (?).
Also shortly after, he says in the mid 1930's, along with angelfish, there was blue acara, severum, festivum and port acaras on stock lists.
1:06: JD named after famous boxer sometimes in the 1930's 
1:07: After WWII, in late '40s, Firemouth, "Geo brasilliensis", Rams, some Apistos available. Also Egyptian mouth brooder ( Pseudocrenilibrus species) amongst the very few African cichlids and 
mouth brooders.
1:50 mark: around 1974 when some of the first Tanganyicans started coming in.


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## BC in SK (Aug 11, 2012)

http://www.cichlidae.com/article.php?id=80 Paul Loiselle gives a little more specific date of 1st importation of Malawi cichlids at 1965: "Following the aquaristic debut of the mbuna in 1965, it quickly became apparent that _Pseudotropheus auratus_ was far more similar to _M. vermivorous_ with regard to it's behavior and color pattern then it was to any other member of the genus _Pseudotropheus_."
I have little doubt that Victorian-types were already in the hobby by the late '60's. By '74-'75, I had a blue, yellow and green kind all of which my oldest brother had seen or had himself much previously. Of course many of the Victorian-types in the hobby don't specifically come from Lake Victoria itself. As far as importation specifically from lake Victoria, according to this, they 1st got imported around 1978:http://www.cichlidforums.com/knowle...aining-Cichlids-from-the-Victorian-Basin.html


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## BC in SK (Aug 11, 2012)

An article by Paul Loiselle on some Victorian-types from earlier years in the hobby:http://www.cichlidnews.com/issues/2014jul/haplochromis.html
The color picture I had of Haplochromis burtoni (now _Astatotilapia burtoni_) was blue, but looking at burtoni a little further, I now realize I probably wasn't incorrect calling the yellow and green ones, burtoni as well. Burtoni may very well have been the only one of these kinds that I would have encountered back in my earlier days in the hobby. It came to the hobby much before, as Loiselle states in this link: "... this species was probably included in the shipments of _A. burtoni_ made to Europe from the lake Tanganyika basin in the late 1950's".
And as noted from the Chuck Rambo talk, Egyptian mouthbrooder (_Pseudocrnibrus multicolor_) was already available by the late '40's. That's likely the first of any of the "Victorian-types".


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## whalebite (Jan 11, 2017)

Yeah I watched the Chuck Rambo Talk, What I want to do is put together a history of Lake Victorian Cichlids and the whole nile perch incident on YouTube. With the talk following sourses on Wikipedia I have put together the timeline which will eventually become a script for the video
1954 Nile Perch Introduced by local officials in Uganda, These only spread to lake Kyoga
Official introductions occurred in 1962 and 1963
The Perch Spread Clockwise Around the Lake
200 Species went extinct.
1980s Lake Victorian Cichlids are exported and enter the Hobby
1990s Nile Perch Populations began to decline


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