Jeff George
Members
Hey, all. I've been pretty active on the ECC forums since returning to the hobby last summer after about a decade off. I found myself corresponding a lot with Matt Quinn over the past several months, about a variety of topics, and he recommended I drop by here for a visit.
I started in the hobby in the mid-70s (the decade, not the temperature), as a middle-schooler. When I was in about 8th grade, I manage to finagle a ride down from Pheonix, AZ, where I lived, to Tucson, where the local cichlid club was holding a meeting in a dentist's office where someone maintained a gorgeous rift lake tank in every room. (I am pretty sure it was the aquarium maintenance guy who got us in there, and that the dentist was his client.) At that meeting, I bought my first African cichlids - a pair of red zebras (with the real-deal blue male) and a pair of Cynotilapia afra (no clue what variety at this point...we had no idea about collection points back then). I think the fish I took home were brought to the meeting by Alan Blivens, whom I notice is still selling Africans online, almost forty years later.
Since then, I've been in the hobby more years than I've been out, but there have been a couple of breaks. I've bred a LOT of mbuna, and a fair number of smaller CAs and lamprologines, plus an assortment of oddballs like orange chromides, Chromidotilapia guentheri, etc. When people ask me if I'm into African or American cichlids, I usually say I'm interested in any cichlid under 6 inches. I'd rather have five 40-gallon tanks, with five or ten species breeding, than one 200-gallon tank with just one or two. I'm currently growing out 3 species of julies, a couple of lamprologus, and about a half-dozen Cryptoheros/Archocentrus/Amititlania varieties, most of which came from Matt. I've got 4 species of garden-variety mbuna breeding in my living room tank, and Hemichromis sp. moanda spawing in the basement. I'm waiting for my Tilapia gutturosa to get their groove on, too.
I raised a lot of show guppies in the late 90s, and have about a million 15-gallon tanks in storage, so for the next year or two, I'm REALLY interested in cichlids that will breed in less than 20 gallons.
I've been in NYC since the mid-90s, and my home club is Greater City AS; I even kept the GCAS president's chair warm for a year in 2000 while Joe Ferdenzi took a break. I'm now living on City Island in the Bronx, and teaching 2nd grade not too far from Hunts Point (yeah, THAT Hunts Point).
On the side, I've always had a love for wild-type livebearers - little brown fish that only a few deranged fishkeepers can understand.
I've been looking around the forum, and you guys have some great conversations going here. I'll put some helpful information in my profile as soon as the mods give me access to it. Looking forward to chiming in, if you guys will have me.
I started in the hobby in the mid-70s (the decade, not the temperature), as a middle-schooler. When I was in about 8th grade, I manage to finagle a ride down from Pheonix, AZ, where I lived, to Tucson, where the local cichlid club was holding a meeting in a dentist's office where someone maintained a gorgeous rift lake tank in every room. (I am pretty sure it was the aquarium maintenance guy who got us in there, and that the dentist was his client.) At that meeting, I bought my first African cichlids - a pair of red zebras (with the real-deal blue male) and a pair of Cynotilapia afra (no clue what variety at this point...we had no idea about collection points back then). I think the fish I took home were brought to the meeting by Alan Blivens, whom I notice is still selling Africans online, almost forty years later.
Since then, I've been in the hobby more years than I've been out, but there have been a couple of breaks. I've bred a LOT of mbuna, and a fair number of smaller CAs and lamprologines, plus an assortment of oddballs like orange chromides, Chromidotilapia guentheri, etc. When people ask me if I'm into African or American cichlids, I usually say I'm interested in any cichlid under 6 inches. I'd rather have five 40-gallon tanks, with five or ten species breeding, than one 200-gallon tank with just one or two. I'm currently growing out 3 species of julies, a couple of lamprologus, and about a half-dozen Cryptoheros/Archocentrus/Amititlania varieties, most of which came from Matt. I've got 4 species of garden-variety mbuna breeding in my living room tank, and Hemichromis sp. moanda spawing in the basement. I'm waiting for my Tilapia gutturosa to get their groove on, too.
I raised a lot of show guppies in the late 90s, and have about a million 15-gallon tanks in storage, so for the next year or two, I'm REALLY interested in cichlids that will breed in less than 20 gallons.
I've been in NYC since the mid-90s, and my home club is Greater City AS; I even kept the GCAS president's chair warm for a year in 2000 while Joe Ferdenzi took a break. I'm now living on City Island in the Bronx, and teaching 2nd grade not too far from Hunts Point (yeah, THAT Hunts Point).
On the side, I've always had a love for wild-type livebearers - little brown fish that only a few deranged fishkeepers can understand.
I've been looking around the forum, and you guys have some great conversations going here. I'll put some helpful information in my profile as soon as the mods give me access to it.
Looking forward to chiming in, if you guys will have me.
