Taxonomy & naming
Parasicydium bandama was described by Risch in 1980 from the Bandama River in Ivory Coast, and Catalog of Fishes lists it in the family Oxudercidae. The genus name points to Sicydium, the stream gobies of the Americas and West Africa that it resembles and shares habitat with. Hobby listings use the scientific name alone.
Morphology
FishBase gives a maximum length of 2 in TL, with a maximum standard length of 2 in reported in the literature. It is a slender stream goby; the atlas holds no detailed description of colour pattern.
Habitat
FishBase describes it as an amphidromous freshwater species found around rocks in fast-flowing rivers. It occurs in the Bandama River in Ivory Coast, the Lokundje and Lobe basins in Cameroon, the Douigni River in Gabon and the Kouilou River in the Republic of the Congo. It is often found with Sicydium crenilabrum, and like that species it is evasive and hard to catch, so its true range may be wider than the records show.
Feeding
Diet is not recorded for this species. Sicydiine stream gobies typically scrape algae and biofilm from rocks.
Mating
Courtship and mating are not described.
Breeding
As an amphidromous goby it is expected to spawn in fresh water, with larvae washing to the sea and juveniles returning upstream, the pattern FishBase gives for the lifestyle. No captive breeding is recorded.
In the aquarium
Few aquarists keep it. A fast, well-oxygenated, rock-lined stream tank with strong flow and algae-covered stone matches the described habitat. Amphidromous gobies are hard to rear through the marine larval phase, so stock comes from the wild. FishBase gives no temperature, pH or hardness figures.
Conservation
The IUCN Red List assessed Parasicydium bandama as Least Concern on 12 May 2019. It is known from several river systems along the Gulf of Guinea coast.