Fish by water

Soft-water fish

Fish whose home water is measured as soft in the cited limnology of that river or lake, from the blackwaters of the Rio Negro to the Congo basin.

1,000 species from 6 waters

A fish is listed when the habitat water named on its own page is measured soft or moderately soft and carries no alkaline qualifier. Lakes that are soft by general hardness but alkaline and buffered, such as Malawi and Victoria, are on the hard and alkaline list instead, because their pH and buffering are what a keeper has to match.

Congo Basin · 605 fish

Habitat water soft Source: "For the aquarist this is the inverse of the rift lakes: most Congo habitats are soft, acidic to neutral and low in minerals, not hard and alkaline." — Contrasting biogeochemical characteristics of the Oubangui River and tributaries (Bouillon et al., 2014).

Rio Negro · 332 fish

Habitat water soft · 8–29 µS/cm Source: A contribution to the chemical characterization of rivers in the Rio Negro basin (Küchler et al., J. Braz. Chem. Soc.) — pH 3.9–6.1, conductivity 8.8–28.6 µS/cm, DOC.

Zambezi–Okavango · 28 fish

Habitat water soft Source: "The defining chemical fact of this region is how soft, dilute and clean the water is" — Water quality in the Okavango Delta (Mmualefe & Torto, Water SA, 2011) [applies to the Okavango; Upper Zambezi described in the same paragraph as 'similarly soft and lightly mineralized' citing FEOW].

Lake Bermin · 12 fish

Habitat water soft · 80 µS/cm Source: Tilapia (Coptodon) bythobates — Practical Fishkeeping: lake water (pH ~7.5, ~80 µS/cm, ~24 °C), deep-water habitat and elevated haemoglobin, caldera size.

Lake Mweru · 12 fish

Habitat water soft · 125–170 µS/cm Source: Report on the Technical Consultation on Lake Mweru shared by Zaire and Zambia — fisheries, problems and solutions (Ssentongo, FAO/IFIP).

Lake Barombi Mbo · 11 fish

Habitat water soft · 49 µS/cm Source: Comparative transparency, depth of mixing, and stability of stratification in lakes of Cameroon (Kling, Limnology & Oceanography, 1988) — Barombi Mbo morphometry, temperature, oxygen, Secchi, conductivity.

Only waters with cited hardness or conductivity measurements count, and the atlas has none yet for Asia or Australasia, so their fish are missing here for now. A fish whose range spans waters of different character is left off rather than given one water's figures.

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