cichlid exports

As a subscriber to several aquarium magazines, I’ve become familiar with some of the great folks who bring outstanding tropical fish content to hobbyists. One of these people is Mike Tuccinardi.

With a background spanning retail, wholesale, and aquarium fish imports and exports, Mike is well versed in the tropical fish industry. He began working at a local fish store in his early teens and has been following the fish ever since. Mike went on to work for a major importer and tropical fish farm in Florida. Since then, he has traveled through much of Asia and South America visiting aquarium fish exporters, collectors, and fishing communities. He has also worked with aquarium-fish specific conservation organizations like Project Piaba and the IUCN’s Home Aquarium Fish Sub-Group (HAFSG), and has written extensively on wild capture fisheries for both hobbyist and general public media outlets. 

Mike resides in Boulder, CO where he operates an aquarium fish import business and currently serves a Senior Editor and Associate Publisher for the English language AMAZONAS Magazine. I contacted AMAZONAS several months ago to reach Mike and he got in touch with me within a couple of days. I am quite grateful that Mike took some time out of his busy schedule to do the interview. Let’s get going!