Altolamprologus calvus and A. compressiceps
Altolamprologus are an iconic fish of lake tanganyika. With their carefree nature, beautiful adult colors, and unique body shape, they’ve become a favorite within the hobby.
The only difference between A. calvus and A. compressiceps is the shape of the head. Calvus have more elongated faces, while comps tend to have a much more convex dip in their skull to give them a more snubbed appearance.
5 to 6 inches, very slow growing. You may not have an full grown compressiceps until its well into 4-5 years of its life.
15-25 years, usually on the latter end of the scale. These fish are a long term commitment.
monomorphic, while some ways of sexing have been suggested (such as a more concave head or a larger body size) none of these are proven.
a tank with a 48″x12″ footprint is considered the minimum for a single specimen or a breeding pair. Height is not overly important, but these fish will swim in all levels of the tank so it’s not a drawback either.
While altolamps are hardier than most tanganyikan cichlids, they still require very hard, alkaline water. The use of aragonite sand will help with this. Temperature should be 76-78 degrees, preferably 78. Care must be taken to keep ammonia and nitrite at 0 and nitrate lower than 20.
Like most tanganyikan cichlids, they do not take shifts in water perimeters very well and temperature needs to be matched as well as possible to avoid high stress or possibly death.
These fish are adapted to live in a rocky habitat, their narrow bodies and long mouths are made to shove into small cracks to suck out young fish or invertebrates for food. They have also adapted a technique similar to triggerfish where they can lodge themselves into cracks and spread their dorsal and anal fins to hold tight into the rock surface.
The best and safest way to stack rocks is to put some eggcrate on the bottom of the tank to both help keep rocks from slipping and to disperse the weight of the rocks throughout the bottom of the aquarium. After this, rocks should be stacked directly on the eggcrate, and the substrate should be added in last, to prevent shifts in the stacks of rocks which could end in a collapse and a possibly broken tank or injured fish.
These fish can be quite shy, especially when young, so it may take a long time before you see them regularly. Because of their shy nature, they do best when the tank is placed in a quiet part of the household with low traffic. Keeping them with less shy fish will help bring them out more often, Cyprochromis species make a good candidate for this.
Altolamps are not avid diggers and plants will be left alone, so long as they live will in the hard water of the aquarium.
Carnivores. These fish primarily eat invertebrates and fish fry in the wild. A good quality cichlid pellet works well as a staple, as well as a good and frequent mix of frozen foods like mysis shrimp and bloodworms.
Training wild caught fish to eat prepared foods can moderately difficult, depending on the individual. Captive bred fish aren’t as picky.
These fish mind their own business and are a common edition to many african cichlid tanks. I always recommend keeping them in a tanganyikan biotope. Due to their passive behavior, they get along with pretty much any tanganyikan that isn’t small enough to eat.
These fish have uniquely rough and rugged scales which also makes them handle aggressive fish and breeding pairs very well (though they tend to also eat the babies of the breeding pairs) and rather than fighting, they tend to turn their bodies toward the fish and take all the blows the fish put on them. They do not get injured easily.
The only thing you want to keep in mind is dietary preferences, as many cichlids from lake tanganyika are herbivores and will suffer from bloat quite easily if they get their share of the meat-heavy diet that altolamps need to thrive. Due to this they do not make good tank mates for tropheus, goby cichlids, or other cichlids that should not be given meaty foods.
Relatively difficult, takes a lot of patience.
These fish form breeding pairs, and to achieve a pair you must start with a group of 6 or so and let them mingle until a pair forms.
It takes this fish as long as 5 years to reach sexual maturity, so it is a long term commitment to get a breeding pair of these fish.
After a pair is formed, proper care is all it takes for these fish to breed occasionally, but they are not particularly prolific. Definitely not a good fish to start with for people looking into breeding cichlids.
