Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Ctenochromis horei

Ctenochromis horei "Kitawe"

Kitawe — kee-TAH-weh (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 Kitawe

  • 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 Kitawe population

Ctenochromis horei "Kitawe" is the Kitawe population of Ctenochromis horei, a geographic colour form from the Tanzania coast of Lake Tanganyika in the 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 Kitawe 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 "Kitawe"
  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)