Due to the fact that I have been unable to locate any quality Vics in my area, I currently only keep and breed Species 44 or Haplochromis sp. "Thick Skin". I have had great sucess in breeding these fish and I find that the males show colour very early in life.

I like that their colours are not the typical blues, oranges, and yellows of most cichlids. Just something different.

Would love to get my hands on some Astatotilapia aeneocolour "Yellow Belly Albert". But as I said the selection in my city is very limited for Vics.

I am not currently keeping any Victorians but did a while back. Please forgive me if I lump in fish from the satellite lakes. I started out with Haplochromis sp. "thick skin" and became hooked. I kept Haplochromis sp. "rock kribensis", Haplochromis sp. "Porthole", Haplochromis sp. "half crimson", Haplochromis sp. "Hippo Point Salmon", Astatotilapia bloyeti, Astatotilapia latifasciata, Haplochromis sp. "fine bar scraper", and Lipochromis sp. 'Matumbi hunter'.

Almost forgot - as a kid, I killed a few Astatoreochromis alluaudi due to ignorance. I'd love to find them again, as well as Harpagochromis sp. 'Golden duck' and any of the Prognathochromis spp.

I have kept and bred some species 44's which the local stores and auctions classified as Hap Obliques. I had some hippo salmon points. I also had some haps from an auction that were kind of greenish gray- I got them at the PVAS auction- Trainer is a member of that club- maybe he knows what I had. Fulo something maybe? Kind of blah coloring so I didnt hang onto them long.
Last ones I kept were some zebra obliques. They seemed a bit more aggressive than the other species.

Sad to hear that Vics are becoming extinct in the wild. They arent overly aggressive and they are terrific breeders bummed

WOW Trainer, that sounds like quite the impressive collection.

Would love to see some pics if you happened to take any when you had them.

Les, it is sad to see. I love keeping mine...I wish that I could get more species, but unfortunatly Vics seem to be getting harder and harder to find. bummed

Aqua_Flower, I'll see if I can dig up some pics. Unfortunately they are from a few years back so they are not of the best quality.

I had a great local source for Vics. Unfortunately when I contacted him last year he stopped keeping Vics completely as he crossed over to the dark side (Tanganyikans lol )

I've kept some Onliques and stuff in the past.

At the moment I have Astatotilapia nubilus. Very cool fish (I have a sick fondness for black fish). They are pretty small at the moment just 1.5 inches or so (I have been told that they will breed at that size). The dominat male is trying to coax his favorite female itno his lair, but she doesn't seem very interested.

Rich