Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Serranochromis robustus

Serranochromis robustus "Lake Kingiri"

Lake Kingiri — LAYK keen-GEE-ree (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 Serranochromis robustus account →

Specific to Lake Kingiri

  • 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 Serranochromis robustus.

IUCNCRITICALLY ENDANGERED · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size22 in56 cm total length
Temperature75–79 °F24–26 °C
pH7.5–8.5alkaline
Depth7–33 ft2–10 m
DietAmbush piscivore
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooderUp to ~1,000 large (~3.5 mm) eggs; broods of 500+ free-swimming fry recorded
Sexual dimorphismYesBreeding males are blue-green with a yellow-edged dorsal fin and egg-spot ocelli on the rearmost anal-fin membranes; females and non-breeding fish are plainer silvery-grey and somewhat smaller.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Lake Kingiri population

Serranochromis robustus "Lake Kingiri" is the Lake Kingiri population of Serranochromis robustus, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the south-central part of the lake. It is the same species as Serranochromis robustus, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Lake Kingiri fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Serranochromis robustus is the big-mouthed ambush predator of Lake Malawi's shallows — a stout, blue-green haplochromine that hangs in the rock-and-sand margins and weed beds picking off mbuna and small catfish. Known locally as Sungwa or Tsungwa and to anglers as the yellow-belly bream, it is one of the lake's few non-endemic cichlids, a riverine-affinity 'largemouth bream' that also runs up the inflowing rivers and down the Shire. Once a prized angling and food fish, it has crashed under net fishing and habitat loss and is now assessed as Critically Endangered.

Full Serranochromis robustus account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Serranochromis robustus "Lake Kingiri"
  2. FishBase — Serranochromis robustus (Yellow-belly bream)
  3. GBIF — Serranochromis robustus (Günther, 1864)
  4. Catalog of Fishes (CAS) — Serranochromis robustus species record
  5. Stauffer, Bills, Skelton & Weyl (2020) — Re-elevation and redescription of Serranochromis jallae and S. robustus, Zootaxa 4858(1):126–134
  6. Winemiller (1991) — Comparative ecology of Serranochromis in the Upper Zambezi floodplain, Journal of Fish Biology 39:617–639