Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Cyprichromis coloratus

Cyprichromis coloratus "Mbita Island"

Mbita Island — m-BEE-tah EYE-land (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 Mbita Island

  • 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 Mbita Island population

Cyprichromis coloratus "Mbita Island" is the Mbita Island population of Cyprichromis coloratus, a geographic colour form from the Zambia coast of Lake Tanganyika in the north-central 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 Mbita Island 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 "Mbita Island"
  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)