Juan Miguel Artigas Azas is a naturalist living in San Luis Potosí, Mexico (actually, the very center of it). He has been passionate about fish ever since he can remember. Although his main interest is Central American fishes, he studies and is drawn to many other species and locales as well.

As creator and editor of the Cichlid Room Companion, Juan Miguel found that his strengths in both the computer and the natural world coincided with the revolution of the internet – an opportunity that lead to the vision of bringing them together in a venture for a site that could pass along the formation to cichlid aficionados and scientists for years to come! Juan has found this never ending project a commitment that he has been willing to maintain with fresh and invaluable scientific content uninterruptedly for over 20 years now.

Dan Sharifi is the owner of Cichlids of the Americas, an internet-based fish provider. Dan has kept fish for nearly 30 years, focusing primarily on Central American cichlids, but with a number of South American cichlids as well. His current indoor facility is over 3,000 square feet, with additional outdoor pools and ponds used to raise fish. In his facility, there are tens of thousands of fish, with over 80 varieties currently in Dan’s breeding program. Dan is one of a few USDA-APHIS certified facilities in the U.S., and ships fish to literally every continent.

Dr. Paul V. Loiselle is an enthusiastic aquarist with 50 years of experience.  During the course of his career, Paul has had the opportunity to study cichlids and other fishes in Madagascar, West Africa, Lakes Victoria and Tanganyika, Haiti, Mexico, Central America, and the Peruvian Amazon.  Emeritus Curator of Freshwater Fishes at the New York Aquarium, he is actively involved in conservation programs focused on the fishes of Madagascar.

Ever since childhood, Michi has had a weird obsession with fish and other animals that live in water.  Studying biology and becoming a scientist has allowed him to make his passion his profession.  Today, Michi primarily studies the ecology and evolution of fish species in Latin America, allowing him to travel to exotic places and observing fish in their natural environments.

Konings started keeping cichlids when he was 14 years old in 1970. Soon he was breeding rare African cichlids and working as an assistant to the largest tropical fish dealer in the Netherlands.

Spencer has had a lifelong passion in keeping and handling tropical fish since the age of 3.  He currently owns and runs a wholesale / retail tropical fish operation The A-fish-ionados Incorporated.  Which currently has over 35 thousand gallons of aquariums.

He has been active in aquarium societies since the age of 12.  His passions for fish have lead him to collecting on four continents and spoken at countless amounts of Aquarium clubs.

Daniel Konn-Vetterlein was born in Germany in 1990. After he finished his schooling he served a voluntary year in ecology and found his passion for birds and the Wadden Sea in northern Germany, a world heritage area and signpost for the years to come. He decided to stay in the north and started his studies of Biology and Spanish at the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel. During his studies, he worked in environmental education, the monitoring of fauna, and the development of renaturation plans.

Richard Stratton was born in 1931 in Colorado.  He spent three years in the military during the Korean War.  Upon discharge, he attended the University of Colorado, getting married during that time.  Upon graduation, he moved to California to accept a teaching job, and he later became a public-school administrator.  He discovered aquarium fish and soon fell in love with cichlids.  He was fortunate to have Guy Jordan as his sponsor to shepherd him through this addiction.

Sandy Moore, President of Segrest Inc., has worked with the company for close to 30 years. Born in Melvin, Iowa, Sandy grew up in Ruskin, Florida, and became an aquarium hobbyist at the age of 5, after obtaining her first fish (an albino Corydoras catfish) from Woolworth’s.

Dr. Timothy A. Hovanec is the Founder and CEO of Dr. Tim’s Aquatics, LLC. a leading provider of innovative bacterial-based products to the aquarium industry including One and Only Live Nitrifying Bacteria.  Dr. Hovanec did his Ph.D. on nitrifying bacteria phylogenetics in aquaria and continues to research the microbial pathways of closed aquatic systems and to develop ‘green’ products for the aquarium industry.