Maclareni pungu

Care at a glance

Overview

A crater-lake endemic with one of the strangest natural diets in the family, though in a tank it takes ordinary foods readily. It is social and does best in a small group rather than alone, kept over the bottom of a calm tank. It is generally peaceful, but choose tankmates carefully, since a specialized fish like this does poorly with rowdy company. Offer a varied diet of prepared and frozen foods. A group needs around 200 liters or more and steady, high-quality water, as this is a demanding species to keep well.

In the wild

Pungu maclareni occurs only in Lake Barombi Mbo, a deep volcanic crater near Kumba in southwestern Cameroon, usually in the shallow water of the crater walls a few meters down. Its water is warm, clear and moderately hard, so aim for 23 to 27 C and a near-neutral pH of 7 to 8. Give it a sand or fine gravel floor, some rounded rock, and calm, very clean conditions, matching a habitat that barely changes through the year.

Good to know

This species belongs to the Cichlidae and reaches about 12 centimeters. In the wild it is a spongivore, feeding heavily on a freshwater sponge that grows in its crater lake, a diet so rare that only a tiny fraction of all fish eat sponges at all. It is a mouthbrooder that breeds at medium difficulty. It is one of a small flock of cichlids unique to Barombi Mbo, the crater lake that is its entire world.

Did you know

Around a fifth of this fish's natural diet is freshwater sponge, spicules and all. Eating sponge is vanishingly rare among fish, practiced by well under one percent of all species, which makes this small Cameroonian cichlid one of the oddest eaters in the family.

Common questions

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