Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Cyprichromis coloratus

Cyprichromis coloratus "Isanga Bay"

Isanga Bay — ee-SAHN-gah BAY (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 Cyprichromis coloratus account →

Specific to Isanga Bay

  • 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 Cyprichromis coloratus.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2025
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size4.1 in10.3 cm total length
Temperature75–81 °F24–27 °C
pH7.8–9alkaline
Depth16–131 ft5–40 m
Dietzooplankton picker in open midwater
Breedingopen-water maternal mouthbroodersmall, ~5–20 large eggs
Sexual dimorphismYesmales brightly coloured (polychromatic), females plain silvery
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Isanga Bay population

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

Colour reference: living Isanga Bay fish at tanganyika.si →

About the species

Cyprichromis coloratus is a slender, open-water cichlid endemic to the rocky southern coast of Lake Tanganyika, where it hangs in glittering schools a few feet off the rock face and plucks copepods from the water column. Described only in 2006, it is one of the lake's "sardine cichlids": a maternal mouthbrooder whose males defend three-dimensional territories in open water and come in two color forms — blue-tailed and yellow-tailed — within a single population. Hobbyists long traded it under provisional names like 'Leptosoma Goldfin' before science caught up with it.

Full Cyprichromis coloratus account →

Sources

  1. tanganyika.si — Cyprichromis coloratus "Isanga Bay"
  2. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Cyprichromis coloratus (species record)
  3. FishBase — Cyprichromis coloratus summary
  4. GBIF — Cyprichromis coloratus
  5. Takahashi & Hori 2006, Description of a new Lake Tanganyikan cichlid fish of the genus Cyprichromis, J. Fish Biol. 68(Suppl. B):174-192
  6. Takahashi, Hori & Nakaya 2002, New species of Cyprichromis from Lake Tanganyika, Copeia 2002(4):1029-1036 (via ResearchGate)