Christy's lamprologus

Care at a glance

Overview

Christy's lamprologus is a bottom-dwelling Tanganyikan cichlid kept as a single fish or a bonded pair, which will dig out a spawning cave under a stone and defend a good stretch of floor around it. It is aggressive around that territory, especially when breeding, so choose tankmates with care and give it a big footprint with plenty of rock so others can keep their distance. Feed meaty sinking foods: frozen bloodworm, mysis, and a quality pellet. A pair wants around 250 liters of tank with a broken-rock, rubble-strewn floor and hard, alkaline water.

In the wild

Neolamprologus christyi lives along the rocky, rubble-strewn coast of Lake Tanganyika. Tanganyika is one of the hardest, most alkaline of all the rift lakes, so keep the pH high, between about 7.8 and 9, with a temperature of 24 to 27 C and very clean, well-oxygenated water. Build the tank around piles of rock and rubble with caves and gaps beneath the stones, over a sandy floor, giving a pair somewhere to excavate and spawn.

Good to know

Neolamprologus christyi belongs to the family Cichlidae and reaches around 13 to 15 centimeters, bronze-toned with glinting rows of scales and a deep, drawn-out tail. It is a cave-spawning cichlid: a pair lays eggs on the roof or wall of a hollow under the rocks and both fish guard the eggs and fry. It is one of many Neolamprologus that share the same rock-dwelling, cave-breeding way of life in Lake Tanganyika.

Did you know

The fish honors Cuthbert Christy, a British doctor and naturalist who collected fishes from Lakes Tanganyika and Malawi for the British Museum. In 1932, in the Congo, he wounded a buffalo that turned on him and gored him fatally, an abrupt end to a life of African fieldwork.

Common questions

Related species

• 

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• Prochilus cichlid

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• 

  Cylindricus cichlid

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• 

  Fourspine lamprologus

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