[Ed. Note: Photo Credit Leo Nico, U.S. Geological Survey, Gainesville, FL. Used with permission]

It has been a while since I have written an article for the Flash. You remember the tales of the brown wine bettas? Since, Van (Shawn) is doing such a wonderful job with our publication, I decided to lend him a hand and write a story about breeding Cichlasoma managuense, or common name Jaguar Cichlid.

The story begins with a trip to a local pet store on the mission to find some mediums size angelfish for breeding stock. I had not had that much luck finding any good quality angels around town. I decided that I was going to breed my own and provide the market with some nice, straight finned, good-looking angels. Well to get good fish you have to start with nice fish. In my own shop-hopping fish stores in the Portland/Vancouver area there are no nice angels to be had.

Seeing no angels at this particular store, I did run across something that caught my eye. Two large Cichlasoma managuense and a fresh batch of about 1000 eggs laid all over the place. Since this was not one of the 140%20 species of fish that I had bred, I quickly hurried to the sales person and asked him if he would be willing to trade a colony of adult Aulonocara hansbaenschi for the "pair" of managuense. He said "Sure! But I will have to take a look at them to make sure they are good quality". Being sto ...