I know most people want a colorful display, with fish from anywhere and everywhere in the world, as long as there's colorful action in their tank.
For me, that's not the priority.
For years I have been into biotope tanks, and the evolutionary concepts and relationships between species of certain geographic areas.
Doesn't matter if all the fish are only brown.
As MFK member "new world" has said, "I've never found a brown fish, I wouldn't pay too much for" (or something like that).
I also try to never combine species from different continents, or at times different countries on the same continent, or maybe even a different lake.
I have kept lake Barumbi mbo biotopes, where all the cichlids came from, and diverged from, and into separate species from a single Tilapine ancestor.
The white spots on the pindu in the left pic, are cephalic pits it uses to detect prey in the substrate.
One of my favorite tanks was a Madagascan biotope.
All the Madagascans above are from the genus Paretroplus, P maculatus left, P kieneri and dambabe middle, and P nourissati right.
The Madagascan below Paratilapia andapa.
Today my tanks have fish from only a small section of high current current river in Panama, they all appreciate the same high flow, the same pH (@ 8, but all have different feeding strategies, so (at least so far) no conflict.
You can see from the differing mouth shapes, the differing feeding stratagy.
The fish also instinctually see this, and recognize the others as noncompetators.
And below the stretch of river they all come from.
For me, that's not the priority.
For years I have been into biotope tanks, and the evolutionary concepts and relationships between species of certain geographic areas.
Doesn't matter if all the fish are only brown.
As MFK member "new world" has said, "I've never found a brown fish, I wouldn't pay too much for" (or something like that).
I also try to never combine species from different continents, or at times different countries on the same continent, or maybe even a different lake.
I have kept lake Barumbi mbo biotopes, where all the cichlids came from, and diverged from, and into separate species from a single Tilapine ancestor.
The white spots on the pindu in the left pic, are cephalic pits it uses to detect prey in the substrate.
One of my favorite tanks was a Madagascan biotope.
All the Madagascans above are from the genus Paretroplus, P maculatus left, P kieneri and dambabe middle, and P nourissati right.
The Madagascan below Paratilapia andapa.
Today my tanks have fish from only a small section of high current current river in Panama, they all appreciate the same high flow, the same pH (@ 8, but all have different feeding strategies, so (at least so far) no conflict.
You can see from the differing mouth shapes, the differing feeding stratagy.
The fish also instinctually see this, and recognize the others as noncompetators.
And below the stretch of river they all come from.
