We love cichlids, those hearty freshwater fish from Africa, Central and South America and India with perch-like bodies and colors that could put Las Vegas eye shadow to shame. And people are passionate about these things. Some claim they can train them to do aquarium loops. Others say they can urge them to leap from the aquarium surface, triple Lutz and then dive down to the gravel and spit a few grains into Egyptian hieroglyphics (the Central American ones do Mayan inscriptions, while the Indian ones fashion dazzling Bollywood movie trailers). Ours bungee jump. Sure. All we know is, when we go to the Fish Gallery and gawk and pluck from their rows of crystal-clear cichlid tanks, they tell us to buy only plastic plants (they'll shred the real ones into taco filler, man) and urge us to make sure we put up the few extra dollars to get the dull female with each vibrant male (it'll keep the male's colors trippin' true, you know? Hormones man, they rule). But the best part is that some cichlids are mouth brooders, which means the females swallow the fertilized eggs and then spit out the babies awhile later, labor pains be damned.