Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Telmatochromis vittatus

Telmatochromis vittatus "Kipili"

Kipili — kee-PEE-lee (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 Telmatochromis vittatus account →

Specific to Kipili

  • 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 Telmatochromis vittatus.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2025
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size3.9 in10 cm total length
Temperature75–79 °F24–26 °C
pH8.5–9alkaline
Depth16–66 ft5–20 m
DietAufwuchs grazer-omnivore; feeds on algae, diatoms, microorganisms and small invertebrates scraped from rocky surfaces
BreedingCave/substrate brooder; spawns in rock crevices, holes or empty snail shells~50 eggs
Sexual dimorphismYesMales grow larger and more slender than females
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Kipili population

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

Colour reference: living Kipili fish at tanganyika.si →

About the species

Telmatochromis vittatus is a small, torpedo-shaped lamprologine cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika, where it grazes aufwuchs from rocky shores and tucks itself into crevices and empty snail shells. It is one of a cluster of look-alike striped Telmatochromis that hobbyists and even reference books routinely confuse. Its most curious wrinkle is ecological rather than visual: across the lake the species appears in a normal rock-dwelling form and a markedly smaller form that lives among shell beds, a split that mirrors a wider pattern of body-size divergence in the genus.

Full Telmatochromis vittatus account →

Sources

  1. tanganyika.si — Telmatochromis vittatus "Kipili"
  2. FishBase: Telmatochromis vittatus (Boulenger, 1898)
  3. Catalog of Fishes (Cichlidae family details, listing T. vittatus as accepted/original)
  4. Morphological diversity of the genus Telmatochromis from Lake Tanganyika (recognizing the 'T. vittatus complex')
  5. Takahashi et al. (2009) — Evidence for divergent natural selection in body size of a Lake Tanganyika cichlid (T. temporalis), Molecular Ecology
  6. The taxonomic diversity of the cichlid fish fauna of ancient Lake Tanganyika (type locality: Mbity Rocks)