Not everyone likes Flowerhorns. And that's perfectly okay. There's fish I don't care for; I can't stand Blood Parrots.

The difference is that I don't walk around with my big fat head thrown back, vomiting on other peoples' hobbies.

According to some authors, adding color, and hybridizing fish for enhanced ornamental appearance or other economic importance is a "bad thing" because it adulterates the genetic purity of globally native species. I wholeheartedly disagree.

Recently, it has even been suggested that further rape of our globe's natural fish populations would be preferable to cultivating a more beautiful, gentler and more prestigious fish for collectors. If you visit some of the more informative and helpful websites of cichlid fans you will read about hundreds of species of cichlid which (certainly not in the name of "cash" [Ha ha!] ) have been overcollected and 'probably lost' as extinct.

So let's face it. When some guys in Malaysia gather together a couple different species of cichlid and "make" some gorgeous Flowerhorns for my enjoyment, I don't get pangs of guilt about the harvest of the last extant Nicaraguan cichlid from native waters.

In fact, when a Flowerhorn perishes in captivity, it's a shame but it's not detracting from any of the world's indigenous gene pool. It's sorrowful for the fish, the owner, and the pocketbook, but not the ecology of the planet.

The cichlid purists are right. Mixing species results in fish the world never intended and the impact could be noticeable if the fish ever returned to their ancestors native waters.

At $250 a pop, I doubt anyone's dumping a Flowerhorn back into a lake in Havana.

Complaints from taxonomists are also well founded, but unreal. Toxonomists race to identify a new species of cichlid and complete their task in almost the same time it takes commercial harvesters to overcollect and decimate the species.

Flowerhorns were made for us, for our enjoyment. Just like Goldfish, Dachshunds, Guppies, and Discus. They're attractive and various in appearance which separates them from the "I have a Jack Dempsey" ... "Me too!" (and they look exactly the same!) syndrome.

So, the "Black balled" title?
It refers to the way certain purists would scorn you as a Flowerhorn hobbyist. I think we should try and understand their position and respect their right to have it. But when it comes to having something "one of a kind" in my tank, I refuse to collect, or not collect, based on the hysterical opinions of a sweaty cichlid purist anxiously wringing his hands about the 'mixing of species'.

I think large-scale burning of tires and strip-logging in the rain forest have more of an impact on our future than whether the taxonomists have trouble with cichlid ID in twenty years.

Flowerhorns have the following advantages over other cichlids:

They are relatively gentle with unrelated species. I've kept my Flowerhorn "Bebe" with small gold barbs, Leporinus and Cory catfish.

Flowerhorns are more colorful than many more common species of cichlid.

Most importantly, no two Flowerhorns will be identical. You could own a Texas Cichlid for example, but someone else will have one just like yours.

They readily accept pelleted foods so you don't have to cannibalize goldfish or guppies. This makes your fish healthier because they don't catch diseases from their food. Easier, too, to keep a can of pellets than a fishtank of live food.

They max out at thirteen to fourteen inches so they're comfortable in the common 55 and 75 gallon tanks.

Cool: You can usually tell when they're "young" if they will be quality or not.

Judging Flowerhorns Article on Judging This young fish at right is 2.5 inches long and already shows three of the most important Flowerfish traits; the start of a hump on its nape, a robust red color and a nice row of flowers on the sides. Interestingly, in the smaller sizes, Flowerhorns aren't very aggressive to each other. The fish at right sold for under $300 - it's a double flowered Red Dragon with a great hump, red eyes, lyre shaped fins, and red in the fins like you see on champions. The fish at right sold for under $300 too. It's amazing because it combines finnage, red eyes, electric blue and the start of double flowering. It's gone, so stop drooling.