Peter George interview

At this year’s annual ACA convention in Cincinnati, I was able to meet many well-known cichlid keepers who I have not met. Never passing up an opportunity to score some new interviews, I eagerly searched out a few folks who I knew were attending.

At one point, I was having a conversation with another attendee about the blog. Quite serendipitously during the conversation, he asked me, “Have you met Peter George?” I had never met Peter, but the name was familiar, as it would be for someone who tries to stay involved in the community like I do.  

Peter and I were introduced, and we quickly began a conversation about fish. As it turns out, we’re also both sports fans, so our conversation soon moved toward college basketball. Talking with him was a pleasure and, at some point during our conversation, I asked him if he would do an interview for the blog. He immediately agreed to it, and here we are. 

Peter has been keeping fish for decades. His foray into cichlids began with a Lake Malawi mbuna species 20 years ago, and he hasn’t looked back. At present, the 43 tanks in his fish room all contain rare Africans, mostly from East Africa. Five of those tanks contain a comprehensive collection of rare crater lake cichlids from Cameroon. A longtime member of the New England Cichlid Association (NECA), Peter annually imports fish from Europe for the club, in addition to his other contributions.

On to the interview!

You’ve been keeping freshwater, tropical fish for a long time. In fact, your cichlid keeping journey began more than two decades ago. Why cichlids and, more specifically, why Africans?

I had kept tetras, barbs, and livebearers for most of my life, but then when I moved to Petersham, MA in 1983 I found that my water was simply too hard and too mineralized to keep the fish I’d always kept. At first, I tried rainbows, and after about 12 years of keeping and breeding them, I got a bit bored, so I started looking for something a bit ‘different.’ I belonged to two fish hobby clubs in my area, and at one meeting I purchased a trio of an Africans (Malawi mbuna), and after I successfully spawned the group, my interest immediately accelerated. I have an old house (1837) with a huge basement, so I decided to add some tanks. First a 120g, which created a real problem for me. I literally had no idea what to do with it. My wife suggested that we visit a high-end pet shop about an hour away, which we did, and they had a spectacular collection of Tanganyikans. I bought three species, and that was the beginning of what has become a cichlid hobby.

Crater lake cichlids from Cameroon are a focus for you. Why are these cichlids special?

I’ve always looked for ‘oddball’ fish. Keeping and breeding a species that everyone has doesn’t excite me, so when I started focusing on African cichlids, I sought out the easy to acquire ones first, setting up a Tanganyikan biotope and then adding a Malawi biotope. But after a couple of years, I started looking for something a bit different, and here’s where a fish club makes a huge difference to an open-minded hobbyist; at a big auction, a new species (to me, at least) was offered and without knowing anything about it, I decided to take it home. It was, and is, Stomatepia pindu, and once I kept it successfully, I thought I’d add one or two additional species from the same crater lake. Now, about 13 years later, I have every species from Lake Barombi Mbo except one, which has never managed to be collected alive. They are compatible, interesting, and very easy to keep together. A few are hard to breed, but I keep trying.

I don’t interview many people who declare they prefer oddball fish. What does “oddball” mean for you in terms of fish and why are they a preference?

‘Oddball’ simply means unusual in the hobby. Sometimes it’s because a species is difficult to collect or breed in captivity, making it a very irregular visitor to our tanks. Sometimes it is simply a species that is simply very rare, and by virtue of its rarity, is considered an ‘oddball.’ But it may be that I simply prefer fish (and cars by the way) that are rarely seen and therefore viewed as ‘odd’ by many people. I certainly don’t think of my fish preferences as odd, but others do, so I go with the flow.

What is one species of cichlid you have never kept but would like to and why?

I’ve never kept discus. Beautiful, challenging, and amazing to observe when they breed. When I move to Texas next year, I’ll set up a big tank in my new living room just for them. And only wild type! I hate the ‘new’ color forms.

If there is a fish keeping “myth” that bothers you, what is it and why?

The myth is that Victorian haplochromines are extremely aggressive and are really difficult to keep. Why? Because it is not only untrue, but keeps fish keepers from including beautiful, interesting, and extremely accommodating fish from their fish rooms.

I’m going to invent a formal title here and pretend it represents the highest accolade for a cichlid aquarist – Master Cichlid Keeper. If such a title existed, what would you consider the criteria to hold it?

I hate titles. To me, the highest accolade is one we have applied to two of our members, Stephen Thornton in Leawood, Kansas and Richard Moore in Brewster, NY. They are ‘Cichlid Whisperers.’ They keep and breed the hard ones. And they always manage to find a way to do the impossible, which I guess for them is just doing their best to make the fish they keep believing they are ‘home.’

You are a CARES Coordinator. Summarize that role and what is required to fill it.

CARES is a program created to advance hobbyist conservation of rare and threatened freshwater fish species. My focus is cichlids, in particular East African cichlids from all the lakes and rivers except Lakes Tanganyika and Malawi. I guess I was selected because I’m aggressive, demanding, creative and constantly looking for ways to get fish into the North American hobby that either have never been here or were ‘lost’ to the hobby in the past. I have built connections with European breeders as well as individuals who actually go to bodies of water in Africa and collect fish for export. It’s really just my desire to constantly challenge the systems in place that prevent serious hobbyists from getting what they usually want, which is more and more different fish.

Let’s look five years into the future. What is the biggest change in the hobby that you envision?

Reduced access to wild fish. Between politics, wars, fruitcake regulations, and a seriously changing demographic in the hobby, I can see a time not too far out when we simply won’t be doing much commercial collecting in most freshwater areas, thereby limiting the hobby to a relatively limited selection of fish to keep.

Anything that you didn’t comment on or discuss above that you would like to?

It’s a great hobby, and it’s a worthwhile and extremely rewarding way to experience a tiny piece of nature in your home. Most cichlids, if given sufficient room and proper feeding, will behave exactly as they do in nature, which is almost always a terrific experience for us humans, who rarely venture into these often dangerous and inaccessible places.