Mainly Cichlids About Me Page

As I stated on the home page, my name is Jim Ellenberger and I want to give you a little background on myself.

I have been keeping fish since I was in college at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. My dad kept fish when I was a kid but I just watched them and didn't do anything with them. When I graduated in 1978 I moved back to the San Jose area. I still had fish and when I got my first house, I also got my first big tank (60 gallon glass). After a while, I added a 125 gallon Plexiglas tank and I was hooked.

I started keeping community tanks but I discovered Discus (and yes, they are a cichlid). This was back in the early 1980's when there wasn't too much known about the proper way to raise Discus. I finally got a pair, and they spawned every 10 days for about a year. I only got one fry to adult size, and it eventually turned black and died, like all the other Discus had. My problem, as it turned out, was that the San Jose water was more like liquid cement; pH of 8.0 and a hardness >450 ppm. So, I switched to saltwater fish.

The salt phase did not last very long as at that time, there were no such things as live rock or wet/dry filters. And the animals were very expensive, and died very easily. So... the salt phase did not last too long.

One day, I went into the Waterline in Mountain View (aka LFS) and saw these really red fish swimming very actively. I asked what they were and I was told "Red Zebras". I asked about the water that they required and I was told "Liquid Cement". WOW, not only did they fit my water, were really active, but they were also CHEAP! That got me hooked on cichlids and I have been with them ever since.

In 1988, I was up at a now defunct LFS in Fremont (McClouds) and I was talking to one of the fish catchers. He had seen me there before and he knew that I liked cichlids so he gave me an information card to the Pacific Coast Cichlid Association (PCCA). I sent away for information, and joined the club.

I have missed very few meetings since then. I have been on the Board of Directors off and on since 1989, and in 1995 I was awarded a Lifetime Award by the PCCA for all of my hard work. In 1995 the PCCA hosted the American Cichlid Association (ACA) annual convention. I was the Auction Chair and everything ran smoothly. I still am the PCCA's Auction Chair (you can tell that I like auctions) along being the Membership Chair, Production Editor for the Cichlidae Communiqué and the printer for the Cichlid Blues, both the award winning publications of the PCCA. I am also back on the Board of Directors because I make all the BOD meetings anyway.

Just before the convention in 1995, my family moved from a 1600 square foot house with three bedrooms and two baths in North San Jose to a 2750 square foot house with five bedrooms, three baths, and a three car garage in the Almaden area of San Jose so I would have enough room to build a fishroom in the garage. The room was finished in 1996 and is 8 feet by 13 feet.(104 square feet).

I joined the ACA in 1993 and I am currently the Editor for the Trading Post, the members advertising publication. I am in my third year of doing this and I still enjoy it.

I was working for a company that made capital equipment for the Semiconductor industry. When the downturn hit, I survived for a while but at the beginning of May, 2003, I was let go. As I was sitting around the house, fixing things and painting, I got really bored. My wife suggested that I start my own business at the end of 2003, I started Mainly Cichlids.

I found a 1200 square foot warehouse near the San Jose airport (the flight path is directly over the building, and it shakes when the big planes take off) and moved in January 2, 2004. I have been working on the place since then and you can see the work on the construction page.

So, by now you are asking yourself "So what does this guy keep?". Well, I have kept most of the more popular Malawi cichlids (Mbuna, Haps, and Peacocks), many of the Tanganyikan cichlids (Lamps, Julis, Cyps, Fronts), many of the Victorian Haps, A few West Africans, many of the Central American Herichthys and Thorichthys species, and South American pikes, Discus, Geophagus, and Apistos. As you can see, I never met a cichlid that I didn't like.

So what I am going to do different than the other guys out here on the web? I'm going to keep the website updated. No looking at lists that have not been updated for months. I am also going to list what I have in the fishroom, even if it is not for sale. I figure that since this is a hatchery, what I am working with (attempting to breed) is something that you would be interested in. And if you email me or call me, I am almost always around to take the call and I check email several times a day.