
Ad Konings
- March 13, 2024
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Ad started keeping cichlids in 1970 when he was 14 years old. Born January 11th 1956 in Roosendaal, Netherlands and lived his early life in Rotterdam, also during study in Amsterdam. Between 1975 and 1980 he studied medical biology at the University of Amsterdam and did his doctoral exam in 1980. Between 1980-1986 he did research on lysosomal enzymes at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Most of it DNA-related work (molecular biology), which just takes too much of your free time.
He moved to Germany (St. Leon-Rot near Heidelberg) in 1986 to live with Gertrud and her two daughters, Mey (12 years) and Louiza (3 years). He started to write books and breed Tanganyika Cichlids at this point. He also worked for 18 months at the University of Heidelberg, Parasitology Dept.
He established his own publishing company, Cichlid Press, in 1991 and the first book published was the “Cichlids Yearbook, vol. 1”.
Ad moved to El Paso, Texas, in 1996. The reason: the sun ALWAYS shines and less than 8” rain in a year. It is a beautiful place with mountains (7000ft) and El Paso is at 4000 ft (1250m). It can be hot in summer (>110°F / 42°C) but at night it cools off. His family all received their “Green Cards” in 2000 and became US citizens in 2016. Don’t plan to move away in the next 100 years.
Cichlid Press is still a mom-and-pop company with Gertrud and Ad doing the traveling, planning, photographing, diving, writing, layout, prepress, publication, and distribution for his books and the Back to Nature books and books by other authors as well. He regularly get requests for photos for magazines, books, scientists, museums, etc. He does the layout/prepress for Cichlid News and the Dutch Cichlid Club magazine (NVC), and works as editor on the best cichlid site on the web, www.cichlidae.com. Ad worked with and was partially employed by Jay Stauffer of Penn State University on several topics, all related to Malawi cichlids.
Ad and Jay started the Stuart M. Grant Cichlid Conservation Fund in 2007 trying to protect the Malawi cichlids from over-fishing and the Tanganyika cichlids from over-extraction by the ornamental fish industry. The Fund was retired in 2023 because he retired and because two organizations in Africa, Ripple Africa in Malawi and Sustain Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania, are better positioned to protect cichlids. Between the expeditions (50+ to Africa) and talks Ad used to fly too many miles a year, but things have quieted down last few years with only 2-3 presentations per year. The good thing of it all: He hasn’t worked a day in his life! Enjoy your cichlids!