Edit Neolamprologus brichardi

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Name

Scientific name

Neolamprologus brichardi

Described by

Authority Poll, Year 1974, Bracketed

Family

Cichlidae

Summary

Neolamprologus brichardi is a small cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika, found mainly over rocky shores in the northern half of the lake. Kn…

Size and aquarium

Maximum size

90mm, total length

Tank size

Minimum length 120 cm, Minimum depth 30 cm

Water

Temperature and pH

Temperature 23–26°C, pH 8–9

Hardness

9–19dGH

Conductivity

Not recorded

Behaviour

Temperament

Not recorded

Community suitability

Not for a community

Where it lives

Countries

Burundi, DR Congo, Tanzania

Supporting text

Etymology

Not written yet

Distribution

Endemic to Lake Tanganyika, where it's recorded from the shores of Burundi, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Fish with the brichardi head pat…

Habitat

Rocky shoreline, mostly between 5 and 25 m deep (Konings, 1993). It gathers in large groups that can look like shoals, but most adults in them live as breeding…

Aquarium size

A single pair can be kept in a tank 80 cm long. If you want to keep a family group and see the young helping to raise later broods (see 'Reproduction'), use so…

Maintenance

Set the tank up like the rocky shore of Lake Tanganyika, with piles of rock arranged to form caves over much of the aquarium and a sandy substrate. It needs ha…

Water conditions

Not written yet

Diet

In the lake it feeds mainly on plankton picked from open water above the rocks (Hori et al., 1983). In the aquarium it takes most foods. Live and frozen foods …

Behaviour and compatibility

A territorial fish that defends its patch persistently (Konings, 1993), and more so when it has fry. It's best kept in a species tank. In a large aquarium it c…

Sexual dimorphism

Not easy to sex. Adult males are usually a little larger than females and grow longer extensions to the dorsal and caudal fins.

Reproduction

A cave spawner, and one of the easier Tanganyikan cichlids to breed. Pairs form within a group, so unless you can buy a bonded pair, start with at least six yo…

Notes

Known in the hobby as the Princess of Burundi, the trade name it was given when the first fish were exported from Burundi in 1971 (Konings, 1993). Trewavas and…

Known in the hobby as the Princess of Burundi, the trade name it was given when the first fish were exported from Burundi in 1971 (Konings, 1993).

Trewavas and Poll described it in 1952 as a subspecies of N. savoryi, Lamprologus savoryi elongatus. That name was already taken by Boulenger's Lamprologus elongatus of 1898, now Lepidiolamprologus elongatus, so Poll renamed the fish Lamprologus brichardi in 1974 after the exporter Pierre Brichard. It was called Neolamprologus elongatus for a while in the 1980s, until Burgess (1988) pointed out that the name had never been available for it (Konings, 1993).

It's most easily confused with N. pulcher, described in the same 1952 paper. Both have two dark bars on the gill cover. In N. brichardi one bar runs back and down from the eye and meets a vertical bar on the rear edge of the gill cover, so together they look like a T lying on its side. In N. pulcher the bar behind the eye curves down along the edge of the preopercle and runs parallel to the second bar without meeting it (Trewavas and Poll, 1952; Konings, 1993).

Other differences have been described from fish photographed in the lake. N. pulcher has a yellow ring around the eye, a plain cheek and rows of small orange or red dots along the body, and looks deeper-bodied. N. brichardi has no yellow eye ring, often has irregular blue or yellow lines on the cheek, never shows orange or red dots, and has shorter tips to the caudal fin (African Diving, 2017). The two also differ in range, with N. brichardi in the north of the lake and N. pulcher in the south.

Yellow fins are not a reliable guide on their own. Konings (1993) treats the 'Daffodil', which has yellow unpaired fins at every age, as a form of N. pulcher, because its gill-cover bars follow the pulcher pattern.

Not everyone accepts that these are two species. Duftner et al. (2007) found that mitochondrial DNA from populations around the lake does not sort by head pattern, and concluded that the brichardi pattern has evolved more than once from pulcher-type ancestors. They proposed treating all of them as one species under the older name, N. pulcher. FishBase still lists both species, and so do we.

It belongs to the so-called brichardi complex, with N. pulcher, N. savoryi, N. splendens, N. falcicula, N. gracilis, N. crassus and others. These hybridise freely and should not be mixed in aquaria.

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My own experienceFor example, I've kept twelve in a planted 60 cm tank since March 2024.A website I sawFor example, an IUCN Red List assessment, a museum catalogue or a FishBase page.A paperFor example, Marshall et al. (2011), Water temperature differences in interfluvial palm swamp habitats of Paracheirodon axelrodi and P. simulans.A book, or something not onlineFor example, Tappin (2010), Rainbowfishes: their care and keeping in captivity.Something already on the profileFor example, the Behaviour and compatibility section already says this.

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Name

Scientific name

Described by

Family

Summary

Size and aquarium

Maximum size

Tank size

Water

Temperature and pH

Hardness

Conductivity

Behaviour

Temperament

Social needs

Community suitability

Where it lives

Countries

Supporting text

Etymology

Distribution

Habitat

Aquarium size

Maintenance

Water conditions

Diet

Behaviour and compatibility

Sexual dimorphism

Reproduction

Notes

References

References