Changing interests in your fish hobby

Cichlasoma Ornatum/Gephyrum

If you keep fish long enough, it seems inevitable that eventually your interests will change. That's been happening for me a bit over the past year. First, I decided to get out of keeping African cichlids (at least most of them). I gave up all of my haps, mbunas and peacocks to other fish keepers with more interest in rift lake cichlids.

That's not to say I won't ever keep them again. There are several peacocks I really like and I've always been fond of the Red Empress, but I knew I just wasn't as focused on them as I needed to be. I still have my pair of Paratilapia Polleni (from Madagascar), and I can see myself keeping calvus or compressiceps again in the near future, but that will probably be it for a while.

I thought giving up the Africans might be it for a while, but I was wrong. More recently, I've started giving up some of my larger new world cichlids, including a female Jack Dempsey that I'd kept for almost seven years. Last week, I gave away a pair of Blue Acaras and now this week, I plan to sell my two remaining Cichlasoma Ornatum/Gephyrum. I originally had three, but lost the male and have two remaining females.

Note: I understand there is some dispute now as to whether these are Ornatum or Gephyrum - two very similar fish from different regions of South America - that have been distributed in the hobby in recent years. Sounds like Gephyrum is the winner, but Ornatum is still the name most people recognize.

It's always sad to say goodbye to fish and to realize you're not as excited about a particular genus as you once were, but I find this evolution of your interests as a hobbyist quite natural. And it makes more sense to find new homes for the fish than to try keeping more than you can handle.

For me, right now my main interest is Earth eaters like the Geophagus and Gymnogeophagus, and some other South American cichlids like Green Terrors and Apistogramma. Someday it will probably change again, but for now I'm pretty comfortable focusing on these fish, primarily all South Americans now.