Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Altolamprologus calvus

Altolamprologus calvus "Cape Kachese"

Cape Kachese — KAYP kah-CHEH-seh (approx.)

The fish

How this cichlid is built, and everything about how it lives, eats and breeds, is shared with the species — this page doesn't repeat it.

Read the full Altolamprologus calvus account →

Specific to Cape Kachese

  • Collection locality & coordinates
  • Local coloration — best judged from the living-fish photo
  • Kept as a single-provenance line, never crossed with other collection points

Care facts below are the species' — shared with Altolamprologus calvus.

IUCNNEAR THREATENED · 2025
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size5.3 in13.5 cm total length
Temperature73–81 °F23–27 °C
pH8–9alkaline
Depth10–134 ft3–41 m
DietCrevice micro-predator (shrimp, crustaceans, fry)
BreedingSubstrate / crevice spawner (not a mouthbrooder)~200–300 eggs
Sexual dimorphismYesMales grow markedly larger with longer trailing fins and a scaleless forehead; females smaller and rounder-bodied.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Cape Kachese population

Altolamprologus calvus "Cape Kachese" is the Cape Kachese population of Altolamprologus calvus, a geographic colour form from the Zambia coast of Lake Tanganyika in the southern part of the lake. It is the same species as Altolamprologus calvus, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Cape Kachese fish at tanganyika.si →

About the species

Altolamprologus calvus — the pearly or black calvus — is a slender, armor-scaled predatory cichlid found only along the rocky southwestern shore of Lake Tanganyika. Its body is so strongly flattened from side to side that it can slip into rock cracks too narrow for almost any rival or predator — a build that doubles as a hunting tool and as the basis of an unusual breeding trick, in which the female spawns inside a crevice too small for the male to follow. Patient, deliberate, and slow-growing, it ranks among the lake's most coveted aquarium fish, and its fortunes are now tied to the silting of the very shoreline it depends on.

Full Altolamprologus calvus account →

Sources

  1. tanganyika.si — Altolamprologus calvus "Cape Kachese"
  2. Konings, Ad — Tanganyika Cichlids in their Natural Habitat (Cichlid Press; foremost authority on Tanganyikan habitat, biotope, and behaviour)
  3. Konings, Ad — Enjoying Cichlids, 2nd ed. (Cichlid Press; husbandry, tank setup, spawning props, feeding, community stocking)
  4. Konings, Ad — Cichlids Yearbook vol. 1 (Cichlid Press; A. calvus husbandry, shell spawning with Lanistes nyassanus, pair management)
  5. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Altolamprologus calvus (Poll, 1978)
  6. FishBase — Altolamprologus calvus (Poll, 1978)