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The Cichlid Factory:  Our Easy Recipe That Works! By Matt Pedersen, 4th Edition, Copyright © 1999

Now we come to the Cichlids themselves. Most "rules" can be broken down to genus, although sometimes it must be broken down to species. In ANY case, we will examine the compatibility, aggression, dietary, reproduction methods, and minimum tank size required to keep these Cichlids.

Genus Summaries -

Popular or common genuses are marked by bold type and underlined. This is by no means an all inclusive survey of Cichlid genuses. Some which are either extremely rare or small have not been included. Incidentally, as you may start to notice, we almost exclusively use binomial nomenclature (scientific names) when dealing with African Cichlids. Although this naming system is constantly being argued over, most Cichlid species do not even have a common name to begin with.

In instances where a Cichlid has a common name, it may not help with the naming confusion. "Red Top Aristo's", for example, were given that name before even being scientifically described. However, "Red Top Aristochromis" do not even belong to the genus Aristochromis. When first discovered, the species was refered to as an undescribed Haplochromis sp. As part of an unpublished doctoral thesis, the first name proposed was Cyrtocara lithobates; with the revision of the genus Haplochromis, H. sp. "Red Top Aristo" was finally described as Otopharynx lithobates. However, still today you will see references to Haplochromis lithobates due to the recent revision of Haplochromis on the whole. Old timers have a hard time parting with the broad, all-encompassing Haplochromis genus name and still refer to any Haplochromine cichlid as a Haplochromis.

As you can see, it can be confusing. Just remember that "The Cichlid Recipe" names fish using the most current "names" (hence the need for current literature as pointed out earlier). We can usually sort out misspelled or outdated names. Race names are usually added to the end of binomial nomenclature in quotes (i.e. Otopharynx lithobates "Redtop", Otopharynx lithobates "Yellow Blaze", etc...). Well, now down to the "hard facts"!

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