Kampango

Care at a glance

Overview

This is Lake Malawi's largest catfish and top predator, growing to around 150 centimeters, so it is a public-aquarium animal rather than a home fish and needs many thousands of liters. It is an aggressive hunter that eats fish, so it is kept alone or, at most, only with very large cichlids it cannot swallow, and even then it will thin their numbers. Adults want open sandy floor, some rockwork, and hard, alkaline, well-filtered water. Feed meaty foods such as fish, prawn, mussel, and large sinking pellets. Buying the small juvenile means committing to a meter-and-a-half predator for many years, so it is a decision for very large systems only.

In the wild

It is endemic to Lake Malawi in East Africa, hunting over the lake's sandy floors and rocky margins. Lake Malawi is hard and alkaline, so match that with a high pH between about 7.5 and 8.5, warm water around 23 to 28 C, and mineral-rich, very clean conditions. An adult needs a vast footprint of open sand with a few large rock structures. This is a fish of a great lake, not a stream, and it wants space above all.

Good to know

Bagrus meridionalis is a bagrid catfish, family Bagridae, and one of the largest lake-endemic catfishes anywhere, reaching about 150 centimeters. It is a substrate spawner with remarkable biparental care: both parents guard the brood in a pit on the sand, the female feeds the fry unfertilized food eggs, and the male brings back invertebrates he sifts from the bottom. The young stay under guard until around 12 centimeters long.

Did you know

A local catfish, Bathyclarias nyasensis, slips its own eggs into kampango nests and lets the guarding parents raise its young, a rare case of one catfish brood-parasitizing another, much like a cuckoo.

Common questions

Related species

• Rita catfish

  Rita rita

  Freshwater

  59.1 in (150 cm)1,057 gal (4,000 L)72–86°F (22–30°C)
• Irrawaddy shovelnose bagrid

  Sperata acicularis

  Freshwater

  70.9 in (180 cm)1,057 gal (4,000 L)73–82°F (23–28°C)

• 

  Asian redtail catfish

  Hemibagrus wyckioides

  Freshwater

  39.4 in (100 cm)450 gal (1,703 L)72–82°F (22–28°C)
• Redtail bagrid

  Hemibagrus nemurus

  Freshwater

  25.6 in (65 cm)185 gal (700 L)72–81°F (22–27°C)
• Tawny dragon catfish

  Tachysurus fulvidraco

  Freshwater

  13.4 in (34 cm)106 gal (400 L)61–79°F (16–26°C)

• 

  Harlequin lancer catfish

  Bagroides melapterus

  Freshwater

  11.8 in (30 cm)120 gal (455 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)