Bio Lex van Tilburg

"Lex was born in 1964. He started fishkeeping as a nine year old; the first years with community tanks, but the first self-bought fish were catfish (Corydoras) and in that aspect little has changed. for the first decade or so, mostly South American fish were kept, few cichlids, but lots and lots of catfishes. halfway the nineties South America made way for West Africa, but the cichlids were problematic in the hard alcaline tapwater of home. he switched to keeping Rift fishes (Tanganyika, Malawi and Victorian), including cichlids, catfishes and others and has bred several catfish species of Tanganyika, some of those were never bred in captivity before.. after over a decade of Tanganyika (and a few Malawi and Victoria) and 5 years of keeping the rare Madagascar cichlids, the hobby has turned back to West Africa, this time including the cichlids. he has studied teaching biology, has had a wide variety of jobs, from for example zookeeper to professional gardening before going back to school; as of now he's been teaching practical biology for 15 years Lex has been to the tropics (South America, Galapagos, Thailand, Northern Australia) and is a certified diver, but hasn't been to tropical Africa yet. he has written articles and has given lectures in the past about keeping catfishes in the home aquarium, also as companions in the cichlid tank. some of his fish have been with him a long time, only a few years back the last of the small African Mochokiella's passded away, reaching a respectable age of 27 years in captivity.