The Project Introduction
I have been an aquarium hobbyist for almost 20 years now and I have been captivated by South American Dwarf Cichlids. Dwarf Cichlids are a special kind of fish species and there are hundreds of variants and sub species today. The species have enthusiasts all over the world who keep these fish and take care of them and provide for their needs and these enthusiasts will share their passion and love for these fish with others around the world.

Sadly the commercial pet stores sell these wonderful fish based on their appearance and their public appeal without being properly informed about their needs and how to properly keep them in an aquarium. Often a newcomer to the hobby will be captivated by the amazing color variants and rush in to buying the fish and take them home. What often happens is a badly informed hobbyist and the fish will die because of the lack of experience and knowledge. Sadly, commercial pet stores don't have the required knowledge and experience at hand to properly inform the customer... and that is what we want to change.

By creating an extensive database that will catalog the different variants and sub species with photographs and detailed information about their habitat, their dietary needs and the water parameter requirments. Most of the information on how to properly keep these fish is scattered around the internet on hundreds of different websites or in books that are very hard to get or never peek the interest of hobbyists. This is one of the main reasons why we want to create an online database with all of this information in one location. Internet is universal and we want to make the information free and available to everyone.

Your Pledge Will Support Us By

• Hiring help with the creation of the database and the writing of the PHP, MySQL and website code.
• Acquiring photographs and artwork.
• Web Hosting
• Kickstarter fees.

Database Features

• Photographs and art work.
• Extensive detailed information regarding species.
• Submit Option for people to share experiences and knowledge.
• Public Forum to share stories, opinions and help.
  

Why No Video
Sadly I do not own the capabilities to make a video and sadly my skills with editing software are not really good and to hire someone would raise the cost of the project by a significant amount and we want to keep the cost to a minimal and not ask for too much. This is after all a hobbyist project with no intention of making profit what so ever.

Advertisement Free Website
We will not be using any advertisement or google-ads on our website. I believe that this will take away from the experience.

Sharing Information
We want to give hobbyists, breeders and experts the option to share their knowledge and experience and that is why we will aim to offer the option to share all of this information online so that information, opinions and experiences can be added and updated over time.

Beginner Hobbyists Support
Next to a heavy focus on South American Dwarf Cichlids we will also share basic information about the aquarium hobby. How to properly set up and take care of your aquarium and we will make available a wide range of beginner tips and tricks for people who just started out in the aquarium hobby.

Different Forms Of Publication
Next to the website that will have the database, photographs, a forum and all of the information regarding the different variants and sub species we will create a PDF file of the database so that people can put the PDF on their mobile devices and take the database with them to a pet store and get information on the spot and have photographs at hand to be able to easily identify species from the database and compare them with the fish in the stores.

Desired Result & The Future
With this project we hope we can help the hobby grow in a more stable and healthy way and provide a platform where people can go and have all the information they need in one single location and have photographic reference to help them in their choices and hopefully bring better informed hobbyists with the information we hope to make available.

A better informed hobbyist will prevent fish from dying to lack of information and/or misinformation.

For the future we want hobbyists to make well thought out decisions rather then have a commercially motivated pet shop owner bait them into buying something they know hardly anything about.

Support Us & Thank You
We hope we have motivated you enough to show your support and support us by pledging and we would like to thank you in advance for all of your support and please help us share this on social media or by telling all your friends about our project... and hopefully with your support we can make this project happen !