Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Neolamprologus brevis

Neolamprologus brevis "Congo"

Congo — COHN-goh (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 Neolamprologus brevis account →

Specific to Congo

  • 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 Neolamprologus brevis.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2025
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size2.2 in5.5 cm total length
Temperature73–81 °F23–27 °C
pH8–9alkaline
Depth16–131 ft5–40 m
DietMicropredator and zooplankton feeder; hovers above shell entrance to pick passing zooplankton and small invertebrates from the water column.
BreedingShell brooder — obligate substrate spawner inside empty gastropod shells (primarily Neothauma).~10–25 fry
Sexual dimorphismYesMales consistently larger than females at every growth stage. Some females develop a yellow to golden cast on the belly. Young fish are hard to sex.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Congo population

Neolamprologus brevis "Congo" is the Congo population of Neolamprologus brevis, a geographic colour form from the Democratic Republic of the Congo coast of Lake Tanganyika in the central part of the lake. It is the same species as Neolamprologus brevis, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Congo fish at tanganyika.si →

About the species

Neolamprologus brevis is a dwarf shell-dwelling cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika, a stocky, frog-faced fish that spends its entire life tethered to a single empty snail shell on the lake's sandy floor. What sets it apart from the lake's other "shellies" is a quirk of domestic arrangement: a male and female commonly share one shell, a near-unique pairing among Tanganyikan shell-brooders that lets the species colonize bare stretches of sand where shells are too sparse for its harem-forming relatives. Barely two inches long but ferociously territorial within the few inches around its shell, it is one of the most popular small cichlids in the hobby and one of the better-studied examples of how reproductive strategy bends to fit available real estate.

Full Neolamprologus brevis account →

Sources

  1. tanganyika.si — Neolamprologus brevis "Congo"
  2. FishBase — Neolamprologus brevis (Boulenger, 1899) summary
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — species record (Neolamprologus brevis)
  4. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — California Academy of Sciences
  5. Ota, Aibara, Morita, Awata, Hori & Kohda (2012) — Alternative Reproductive Tactics in the Shell-Brooding Lake Tanganyika Cichlid Neolamprologus brevis, Int. J. Evol. Biol.