Syn.: Chromis callipterus, Ctenochromis callipterus, Haplochromis callipterus, H. centropristoides, Neochromis simotes nyassae, Tilapia calliptera
Possibly found in 1985, in Africa: Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, in lakes Malawi and Chilwa and coastal rivers to the Samer, Busi, and the lower Sabi-Lundi rivers as well as the lower Zambezi and Pungwe systems.
My fiancé, Darren, and I went to visit a house of a member of the PCCA, Pacific Coast Cichlid Association, in 1996, who had been keeping these fish with his Synodontis multipunctatus for reproducing the Synodontis.
I was so entranced by the coloration of the male in his huge tank that I told myself that one day I would have some of my own. The golden brown with the deep black of the ventral fins and under the male's neck was so breathtaking. The females paled a lot in comparison.
So, when I saw this species come up on the auction table as BAP fry I couldn't resist purchasing the three bags of six each. I took them home and placed them in a 30-gallon tank on the bottom row of my tank stand. These guys were approximately one inch in length. After a couple of months of just feeding them and doing sporadic water changes I decided to move them to 30-gallon tall tank in our bedroom so that I could see them. I was really shocked after I moved them into this tank and realized that a female about one and a half inches long was holding! Bad water conditions and these guys were determined to reproduce their species.
I removed the female and began to remove the eggs from her mouth. I placed her in a half gallon plastic container. I held her between my thumb and forefinger of my left hand and squeezed her mouth at the corners gently to open her mouth. I then began shaking her up and down out of the water and after a few seconds of this the female released her fry. The fry looked as though they were going to be free swimming in a couple of days. I placed the female back into the container to watch her mouth for any signs of any more fry. This is easy to tell because if the female is still 'holding' she will be moving the lower part of her jaw in a motion that can only be described as 'rolling'. She rolls the eggs around in her mouth to keep them supplied with oxygen. She didn't make this movement so I put her back into her tank.
I kept the fry in this container with a piece of airline until they became free swimming and then I placed them in a ten gallon tank to grow out some more. These are supposed to be hard water fish but they did just fine in our tap water of 7.2 pH and a hardness of 7.0. I kept the temperature at 76° F.
When another female spawned I removed the eggs. It was not hard for me to tell one a female was holding. I looked at the fish every morning when I got up and checked out all the fish in the tank. I would know the day one spawned but not when. It took the eggs about seven days to hatch and another 10 - 14 days to be free swimming.
In June of 1998 I was lucky enough to be able to watch these fish spawn in a 100-gallon community tank. This community tank contained the calliptera, Lethrinops lethrinus spawning group, and some young Lodotropheus sprengerae (Rusty Cichlid), some Pelvicachromis pulcher (Kribs), Geophagus steindachneri and some other species of fish. The calliptera lived well with the lethrinops and Rusty Cichlids but destroyed the Geophagus steindachneri. These fish are very territorial and can only be maintained in a community tank with other fish with the same temperament.
They spawned behind an upright rock. I had placed this large rock in the front left corner of the tank with the flat side to where I could watch the fish. I didn't have to wait long. Within a few hours the dominate male and a small female began spawning right where I could see them! The one observation that really got me was the male would also nudge the anal fin of the female. I knew the females did this to the males to fertilize her eggs but I haven't noticed this male to female behavior in any of my other mouth brooders. The other thing I noticed was that the females can also have some egg spots on their anal fin. Luckily with this species the two sexes are so differently colored and patterned that it doesn't matter that it is easy to sex them.
I also found out that the females of this species are very reluctant to release their fry. I had one female that almost starved herself in the 100-gallon community tank by refusing to release her fry. This is one good reason to strip your females or place the females in a 20-gallon tank by themselves with hiding places so the female will release her fry when they are free swimming and ready to eat. It takes approximately twenty-one days from hatching to free swimming. The female will still take her fry into her mouth for safety for another one to two weeks.
I would begin feeding the tank a day or two before the fry should be released with live baby brine and after two weeks would begin feeding them finely ground flakes. The parents did quite well on basic flakes and once every two weeks I would feed them some frozen bloodworms.
They have a great personality. The dominate male claimed the spot behind this rock as his personal spawning site but would chase any other fish to the other end of the tank.
When we moved April 4th, 1999, we lost all of our calliptera. It was devastating. At the May, 1999, PCCA auction we purchased another couple of bags in hopes of some day being able to spawn our Synodontis multipunctatus.
Some of you may wonder why we had three different species in this 100-gallon community tank together. We had eight Synodontis multipunctatus that we were hoping would spawn with any of the species. This is the only reason we had them all in the same tank. If you are wanting only calliptera, lethrinops, or the Rusty's fry, do not put these all together. Keep the species in separate tanks. The males of the mouthbrooders will spawn with other females other than their own species.
These fish are very beautiful. Spawning is easy and one should keep at least one male to several females.