Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Ctenochromis horei

Ctenochromis horei "Cape Mpimbwe"

Cape Mpimbwe — KAYP m-PEEM-bweh (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 Ctenochromis horei account →

Specific to Cape Mpimbwe

  • 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 Ctenochromis horei.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2025
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size5.5 in14 cm standard length
Temperature73–81 °F23–27 °C
pH8.6–9alkaline
Depth0–33 ft0–10 m
DietOpportunistic omnivore/invertivore
BreedingMaternal mouthbroodergenus-typical, roughly a few dozen eggs (poorly documented)
Sexual dimorphismYesDominant males larger and brightly coloured (iridescent blue-green flanks, egg-spots on the anal fin); females and subordinates a drab barred tan.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Cape Mpimbwe population

Ctenochromis horei "Cape Mpimbwe" is the Cape Mpimbwe population of Ctenochromis horei, a geographic colour form from the Tanzania coast of Lake Tanganyika in the north-central part of the lake. It is the same species as Ctenochromis horei, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

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

About the species

Ctenochromis horei is a robust, predatory haplochromine-like cichlid found throughout the inshore margins of Lake Tanganyika and its feeder rivers. A member of the lake's Tropheini, it has been shuffled between genera for over a century — Haplochromis, Ctenochromis, briefly Pseudosimochromis, and most recently the new genus Shuja — because the old genus Ctenochromis proved to be an artificial grouping. For aquarists it is notorious on a different axis entirely: pound for pound it is among the most belligerent mouthbrooders the lake produces, a fish that hobbyists describe with equal parts admiration and exhaustion.

Full Ctenochromis horei account →

Sources

  1. tanganyika.si — Ctenochromis horei "Cape Mpimbwe"
  2. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — horei (Chromis), valid as Shuja horei (Günther 1894)
  3. FishBase — Shuja horei (Günther, 1894) [formerly Ctenochromis horei]
  4. Genner et al. 2022 — Revision of the African cichlid genus Ctenochromis, with the new genus Shuja from Lake Tanganyika (European Journal of Taxonomy 819)
  5. Schedel et al. 2019 — Major fraction of African cichlids diversified during the Miocene (placed horei in Pseudosimochromis) (BMC Evolutionary Biology 19)
  6. Wanek & Sturmbauer 2015 — Form, function and phylogeny: comparative morphometrics of Lake Tanganyika's cichlid tribe Tropheini (Zoologica Scripta 44)