Spilo

Care at a glance

Overview

This is a solitary, predatory fish that needs a very large tank of at least 475 liters with open water to swim and chase. It cruises the middle of the tank and will eat fish small enough to fit in its mouth, so choose tankmates carefully. Feed a high-protein carnivore diet of quality pellets and frozen foods; avoid feeder fish, which carry disease. Keep hard, alkaline, warm water with strong filtration.

In the wild

The spilo comes from Lake Malombe and Lake Malawi in East Africa, hunting in open water away from cover. Malawi water is hard and alkaline, so it needs the same: pH around 7.5 to 8.5 and a temperature in the mid-20s C. The real requirement is space, a long tank with lots of open swimming room rather than rockwork. This is an open-water predator, not a rock dweller.

Good to know

Champsochromis spilorhynchus is a large cichlid in the family Cichlidae, built as a streamlined, fast pursuit predator with an elongated body and a big mouth. It is one of the larger Malawi cichlids, reaching around 40 cm. Like other Malawi haps, it is a maternal mouthbrooder, with the female holding eggs and fry in her mouth. Its wild population is considered stable.

Did you know

It hunts more like an open-ocean fish than a typical lake cichlid, running down prey in midwater with bursts of speed rather than ambushing from cover. That kind of chase-down predation is unusual among Lake Malawi's cichlids.

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