Getting the opportunity to capture a piece of a hobbyist’s cichlid journey is a privilege that I don’t take lightly. And today’s interviewee, Mike Helford, has had quite the journey.
He is a hobbyist who has been on my interview list for a long time. I reached out to him earlier this year, and we finally made it happen.
What began with a 15-gallon tank containing a green sword-tail nearly 60 years ago has evolved into a fishroom with more than 50 tanks. Other than a few dither fish, Mike’s collection is mostly cichlids, where he focuses primarily on Lake Malawi species with tanks up to 180 gallons. In fact, Mike is one of the most knowledgeable Lake Malawi hobbyists I know. In addition to the many articles he has written, he has given numerous talks at clubs/organizations around the country and served on the board of several.
I also have to say, Mike is a tremendous ambassador to the hobby. In addition to being one of the nicest people in the world, he greatly values the fellowship of the hobby, meeting fellow cichlid keepers, and building long lasting relationships. Onward to the interview!
NOTE: All photos courtesy of Mike Helford unless otherwise noted.
Though you enjoy cichlids from around the world, your main focus at present is Lake Malawi haplochromines. Why those species?
As a preface to your questions here, let me start by saying how cool and important it is that you’re running this blog. Very often when we have a speaker at our club or have conversations with advanced hobbyists or others in this field, I ask them to please, please write a book or document what they’ve presented or discussed. So much of what we know slips through our fingers as we lose people and verbal, out loud discussions are gone when the event is over, and we have such collective experience in terms of keeping all these fish, breeding them, and the history of the hobby and field. So, thank you Scott, so much for doing exactly this and keeping these communications going, documented, and available.
Okay, back to why Malawi haps – For some reason, Malawi species have always turned me on in the hobby. For me, they are so varied and interesting and there are so many beyond the popular ones in the hobby. With an estimated 700 to 1,000 or more species in Lake Malawi, there are lots that we don’t get to see very often in the U.S., and many that have not been in the hobby or certainly not available. So, after getting through fish like Aulonocara baenschi, A. stuartgranti Maleri (“Sunshine Peacocks”), what used to be called A. hansbaenschi (“red shoulder peacock”), and Labidochromis caeruleus in the “electric yellow” form, it was fun to work with a few others that I hadn’t known. Species such as Fossorochromis rostratus and Cyrtocara moori were fascinating with different color patterns and body shapes, but still generally available. Then, when some really less well-known species became available via importers or others, getting species like Mylochromis epichorialis (pic below), Mylochromis spilostichus Makokola or Hemitaeniochromis urotaenia for example, was super exciting.
While I was crazy about seeing and having these species, then jumping for joy with breeding them and spreading around some fry, it blew me away that many others were not excited. It took a minute to realize people just didn’t know what they were or what they looked like, or that we had never had them available. And sure enough, after some time, when others didn’t get overjoyed with having this rare species, and my group aged out and died, they were just gone. So, I came to realize that I was part of a smaller, maybe much nerdier,group of people with interest in these unusual but quite varied group of fish with many, many species.
Malawi cichlids tend to be brushed off as common and easy, only to be graduated past to something more serious and higher status like Tanganyikan species, etc. Well, more recent news about over-collection from the lake, and overfishing and environmental changes foreshadow the loss of so many of these species. We simply can’t get them anymore. There are a good number of Malawi species on the CARES priority list, and so the Malawi species that are often dismissed as an “early stage” cichlid in the hobby are actually endangered, and not so simple. They should no longer be disregarded as an unimportant, easy, starter set of colorful beginner fish.
Spend a few minutes looking through the 53 species of Copadichromis on the Cichlid Room Companion, browsing Ad Konings’ book, “Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat”, or visiting the website Malawi.si. You’ll see a wide variety, many of which are not known by most hobbyists.
If you could only give three pieces of advice to hobbyists new to Lake Malawi cichlids, what would they be?
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- 1. Try a couple of the popular species and then try a few of the less well-known species and see if they don’t pique your interest.
- 2. Research the species, read about them before you get them or shortly after you acquire them.
- 3. Feed a variety of foods, avoid constant heavy proteins (to avoid blockage or bloat), and provide plenty of hiding places among rocks and tall plants to break up the line of sight of aggressive fish.
You’re also a big fan of Lake Victoria species. What Vics do you have right now and what would you like to keep in the future.
Victorian species (“Vics”) that I have right now include:
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- Labrochromis ishmaeli
- Haplochromis sp. madonna (now is Neochromis simotes)
- Psammochromis schubotzi
- Haplochromis sp. musoma blue
- Pundamilia nyererei Ruti Island
- Haplochromis sp. rainbow
- Haplochromis sp. yellow Ndurwa
- Haplochromis sp. cherry fin
- Yssichromis pyrrhocephalus
In the future, I would like to keep new, endangered species (which is many of them). So many new species have been brought in via friends, which are on the CARES list. Many are friends in my local club, Greater Chicago Cichlid Association (GCCA), and especially some people in the New England Cichlid Association (NECA), like Peter George, Michael Liu, and others. We need to be careful with these populations as some seem to be gone in the wild.
You recently mentioned that many cichlid keepers start out focusing on colorful species but then transition to more behaviorally interesting fish over time. Talk about a couple of your favorite species, behaviorally.
I’ll just mention one if that’s okay, in the interest of brevity. One of my favorite species that I have been lucky enough to have, thanks to Trevor O’Shea and Wonder of Cichlids, is Ctenopharynx intermedius. This is a large Malawi hap that grows to about 10 inches. In addition to the usual behaviors of Malawi cichlids where the subdominant males try to look like females to avoid the aggression of the dominant male, this dominant male built a sort of bower on one side of his tank. He did this by moving almost all the sand in a 125-gallon tank to one side where it created a steep hill that ran about halfway up the left side of the tank.
Your fishroom contains more than 50 tanks. Describe it for the readers.
Mostly 40 breeders, 75s, six 125s, and two 180-gallons. Smaller tanks, mostly used for fry or smaller fish waiting for a larger species tank, are twelve 10-gallons and four 20 longs.
All of the tanks are drilled with both a drain and bulkhead, which feed into PVC, taking the water down to an ejection pump. Refilling is done with an Intellifaucet (an automated valve that controls the set temperature of the water going back in and has a timer). Each tank also has an overflow toward the top. Pex tubing runs through the ceiling from a manifold by the Intellifaucet back to each section of tanks with another manifold and individual tank valves, and from there down into each tank. I have to thank Mario Toromanovic for his great expertise with designing, building, and hard work. The fishroom wouldn’t be what it is without him.
From a breeding perspective, what do you know now that you wish you knew 20 years ago?
Species tanks. Keeping one species, or at most maybe 2 species per tank where they are compatible and different enough from each other. In the early days, it was easy to take delivery of lots of great, interesting fish at general auctions, and then I jammed lots of different fish into tanks, so that I had few single species tanks.
Also, one gallon food containers (used by restaurants and cooks) for small fry or fry that might not do great in a breeder box at first.
As a regular speaker at aquarium clubs, you’ve given many different talks. Your latest presentation is titled “Malawi – A Different Perspective.” What can attendees expect to hear at this talk?
The focus of this talk is what I described earlier. That is, Lake Malawi species are usually seen as a starter, a gateway drug, so to speak, to get on to other more “sophisticated” fish. I took a deep liking to them, having bred around 215 Malawi species and type locations over the last 30 years. But, much to my surprise, Ad Konings and others started talking about startlingly declining populations in this lake. Increased fishing threats from people using mosquito netting, which catches even small fry, and several other threats. These have led to an increasingly pessimistic picture of the survival of many of these varied species and for their availability in the hobby, which stress the need to maintain our aquarium-based populations as we may never see some of them again.
From a conservation perspective, what do you think are the most important things hobbyists can do and why?
First, be careful with your fish, in the sense that anything you’re breeding should not have a chance at hybridization. Many of the fish in the hobby are not being found in large numbers anymore. They may soon become unavailable. We need to protect the bloodlines and the genetics of the species that are endangered, as well as others that just may not be collected or imported again.
Second, dedicate at least one tank to a CARES species. If you haven’t heard the encouragement from CARES advocates, your one dedicated tank or species might be what saves that species or keeps the genetic diversity viable for a given species.
Third, keep in mind that more than a few species have become “lost in the hobby” in the sense that they’re not being found in the wild anymore (or rarely). They were in some hobbyists’ tanks, maybe even considered widely available for a while, but then after a few years, they’re gone. Someone, somewhere had the last group of a given species, maybe in the back of their fishroom, in a small, neglected tank that was of little notice. That person could have saved them. But they didn’t know. So now some species are gone that were all around the hobby.
Let me clarify that there’s nothing wrong for those who like hybrids, like the dragonblood peacock or the OB variants of fish that aren’t naturally OB in the wild – as long as people are honest about their fish that they pass on so that it doesn’t potentially mess up someone else’s clean bloodline or breeding group. Be honest about the fish being moved on or sold.
Check out the websites that support CARES, like Caresforfish.org, Aquaristspecies.net, Aquaristatlas.com, the Cichlid Room Companion, and Malawi.si.
Also, support others in the hobby. We all learn from each other of course and help each other to get through crises in the hobby when things don’t go well. The great friends in the hobby and the field have kept me going and learning and excited, and I can not thank so many people for this.
Last question. What’s next in Mike Helford’s fish keeping journey?
Having enjoyed 50 years of keeping fish, I’m still excited about learning and working with the CARES fish we have and some new species. I have to thank so many people, especially all my GCCA buddies who still hang with me even though they know the mistakes that I’ve made and all. Looking forward to more time with fish friends and reading more on The Cichlid Stage! Thanks Scott, I’m honored to have been involved in a small part.