About us
Two hobbyists with a very full fish room.
The Rare Fin is not a shop. It is a collection that outgrew its walls — rare crosses, sought-after hybrids and line-bred African cichlids, raised at home in Kingston and Battersea, Ontario.
Our mission
To raise rare African cichlids properly — line-bred, documented and grown out at home — and to send every fish to a keeper whose water we have actually talked about.
It started with one tank that should have been enough.
Like most people in this hobby, we started with a single tank. Then a second. Then a rack in the basement and a spare room that stopped being spare. What began as keeping turned into breeding, and breeding turned into line work — holding back fry, culling hard, and chasing colour and form across generations.
We are experienced hobbyists, not a business with staff and shelves. We are just now branching out into sales, which means the fish you see here are fish we would otherwise keep. That is the standard they are held to.
Everything is local. All sales are pick-up only in Kingston or Battersea, Ontario, and every fish can be viewed in person before you commit. We would rather spend twenty minutes talking about your water than sell you a fish that will not thrive in it.
What line breeding means here
Line breeding is deliberate, documented selection within a family of fish — not random pairing. We track broodstock, keep records of what each generation produced, and only continue a line when it improves. It is slow work, and it is the reason our fish look the way they do at adult size instead of only in the bag.
How we work
We raise before we sell
Every fish in the gallery was bred, grown out and held here. We know its parents, its growth rate and its temperament because we watched all of it.
Honest about hybrids
Crosses are crosses. We tell you exactly what a fish is, whether it is a stabilised line or a hybrid we are still working with, and what to expect as it grows.
No storefront, no pressure
This runs out of our homes. There is no till, no upsell and no queue. You come, you look at the tank, and you decide.
Display stock only
We sell display fish. We do not sell breeding pairs or breeding rights, and we ask that our fish are not used for breeding.
15
Day live guarantee on every fish that leaves the fish room.
2
Pickup locations: Kingston and Battersea, Ontario. By appointment only.
0
Shipping. No couriers, no boxes in the mail — in-person pickup only.