The Cichlid Room Companion reaches twenty years online

This month the Cichlid Room Companion has reached another milestone: 20 uninterrupted years with daily site updates online. Needless to say, the amount of quality cichlid information that we have accumulated over the years is staggering. When I began the site back on May 6 1996 I had the naive idea that even if the daily work I had to put in the CRC was significant then, there would be a moment when it would decrease. To this day that has not happened though, with more information and more ideas to make the site better coming to me every day. I now see that the site may never be complete, but I also came to terms with this reality thinking that new cichlid information will also never stop coming, and we will be able to present the latest findings. That the site has been able to successfully be online by no means is the result of my work, but that of me and the many talented authors who have supported the site with their material and vast knowledge. I would have never been able to make the CRC what it is today on my own. I have learned tremendously from these talented people over the years. I thank them for all their work and support.

The CRC has many sponsors who have played an important role in covering the costs of keeping it online; they have provided the necessary funds without expecting financial retribution for their generosity. I have to especially thank Tomas Nilsson, Claudia Dickinson, Ad Konings, Vera Grant, Rusty Wessel, Morrell Devlin, Willem Heijns, Eric Hanneman, Richard Robinson, Laif Demason, the Ohio Cichlid Association, as well as the rest of our long list of sponsors for their financial support. I hope your investment in the Cichlid Room Companion has paid off and you can be proud of it.

I also want to thank the American Cichlid Association for their vote of trust in the Cichlid Room Companion, making the site their official information source and providing access to all of its membership, I thank them for this as well as for their continuous encouragement. I particularly thank Rusty Wessel, Chuck Rambo, and Wayne Leibel for their involvement in making this partnership a reality.

I want to also thank the Cichlid Room Companion fellows John Benn, Ad Konings, Pam Chin, Teale Miller, Antón David Pérez Rodríguez, Manuel Zapater Galve, Lisa Boorman, Thomas Andersen, Michi Tobler, Greg Steeves, Philippe Burnel, Ken Boorman, Mark Smith, Richard Robinson, Manuel Salazar González, Anton Lamboj, Patrick Tawil, Florent de Gasperis, Florent de Gasperis, and Piotr Koba. All of them have (and many still do) donated an extraordinary amount of work to the site for it to be better. The result of their hard work makes what the CRC is today.

I also want to thank our 2016 fellow, Heng Kuang Liao from Taiwan, who over the years has translated to Chinese hundreds of site documents, helping us in the goal of distributing quality cichlid information everywhere it is desired. China and Taiwan are nowadays two of the countries that have a higher demand for Cichlid Room Companion documents.

But of course, the main reason that we have all put this information together and the principal reason for the existence of the Cichlid Room Companion is the thousands of regular visitors the site receives every day. We in the Cichlid Room Companion are very happy that we can help in the dissemination of quality information, helping to spread the wonder and love for cichlid fishes and life in general to all corners of the earth.