Spawning Neolamprologus tretocephalus
by Jim Carmark, Jr.
From the September 1999 issue of "The Daphnian", Boston Aquarium Society
Aquarticles
N. tretocephalus is a beautiful black and white, vertical barred fish with
blue highlights to the unpaired fins. Coming from Lake Tanganyika, these fish desire
clean, hard, alkaline water, with pH levels up to 9.0 not uncommon in nature. Sometimes
referred to as "Dwarf Frontosa" (Conkel, 1996), these 5 barred fish may grow to
six inches, with four inches being a common size. They are often confused with Neolamprologus
sexfasciatus, which is a similarly colored fish with six, not five, black bars. N.
sexfasciatus also grow larger, sometimes reaching nine inches.
Trets, as they are commonly called, make their living on the vast mixed rock and sand
beds of the Great Rift Lake, feeding on snails and other molluscs. Wild caught N.
tretocephalus have larger heads and jaw structures than their tank raised cousins due
to this diet of crushed snails. In the aquarium, Trets thrive on a good flake food diet,
supplemented with quality pellets and frozen foods. I don't feed any of my fish live foods
except for baby brine and the occasional garden worm. Trets need a lot of good food to
grow and spawn, but their water must be kept clean. I've kept them in pH as low as 6.0
with no ill effects, but they don't like old water. I change 50-75% of their water every
two weeks, replacing with warm (75-80F), alkaline (7.4-8.0), slightly salty (1 tablespoon
/ 5 gal) water.
N. tretocephalus can be very difficult to obtain as a pair, as they are quite
aggressive to conspecifics. I started with a group of small 1" fish (numbering 8), in
a mixed community tank of 30 gallons with other rift lake cichlids of a similar size. As
they reached 2 to 2-1/2", 1 moved my first group of (now) 5 fish into a 40L
(48x13x16) set-up with a mixed oyster shell and #3 gravel over an undergravel filter. A
small foam block power filter hung on one end. Along with the Trets, I had 6 Kamba Bay Tropheus
moorei, 10 large Green Tiger Barbs, and a 4" pair of L. cylindricus. I
changed half their water every two weeks and started feeding frozen foods. Within 2
months, the largest fish (male) had paired up with a medium size female, who was much
smaller in the head and paler in color. The pair took over a 5" flower pot with the
bottom knocked out, standing upside down, which I had pushed down into the gravel. The
male, much heavier about the head and "shoulder" (pectoral) region, excavated
all the gravel from the pot. The female started spending more and more time in the flower
pot, until finally she did not emerge for almost a week. When she did, she was surrounded
by a cloud of three or four hundred fry. The father, who had kept everyone away from an
8" area near the pot, suddenly became super aggressive, and pushed all the cichlids
into about 12" of space at the far end of the tank. The barbs were pushed around, but
allowed much closer to the nest and swam freely around the male's enlarged territory. The
fry grew well on live baby brine and crushed flake food. After three weeks, I pulled about
3/4 of the remaining fry, about a hundred in number. The fry that I had left with the
parents grew faster than the fry that I had removed for about three more weeks, then
vanished. The parents spawned again less than a week later, with similar results.
The next time I tried Trets, my girlfriend raised three up from 1" fry to over
3" in a 55 gallon community tank containing 5 Yellow Labidochromis, a
5" Distochodus sexfasciatus, 2 Hypancistrus zebra, 2 "Starry
Night" Ancistrus, 12 assorted Clown Peckoltia types, 10 large Tiger
Barbs, 4 large Daffodil Brichardi, and 6 Combtail Gouramis. The tank was heavily
planted, with a x-large foam filter and a big outside filter. Gravel was #2 natural, with
a small amount of clam shells in a bag in the filter. Water was changed every 2 weeks, and
the pH runs 6.5-7.5, at about 72-78F. One Tret was killed and we were left with two fish
with fairly slender bodies, pale blue fins, wide white stripes. I had a wild 4" male
I had picked up, and he was introduced into the tank after a major water change and tank
re-arrangement. More than six months went by before the male took up housekeeping with the
smaller fish, again in an upside down flower pot. We waited a month, but no fry. I finally
decided to move all three fish into a 20L (30xl2xl2) set up with an undergravel filter
covered with shell gravel and a small corner filter. I added ten small (1") Tiger
Barbs, lots of rock cover, and two teaspoons of Tropic Marine Malawi-Tanganyika Salt.
Within a day the larger female Tret was pushed into an upper corner, with her fins badly
chewed. The remaining pair often confronted each other with an open mouth, but no damage
was done to either. The fish had their choice of two flower pots and a Rino Cave, which is
a sealed clay pot about 4" around by 2" high, with the entry hole designed for
particular species, such as a high, narrow hole for Alto. compressiceps, a
1/2" round hole for Neo. leleupi, or 3/4" elliptical hole for species
such as Neo. pulcher 'Daffodil'. The cave I used was a Daffodil cave,
which the female loves, but is just a bit too small for the male's liking. (He preferred a
slate cave over the left of the Rino Cave). The following morning, I discovered about 75
whitish eggs laid on top of the undergravel plate in front of the Rino Cave and near to
the front of the male's cave. The female hangs over them, occasionally examining them for
dirt and fungus, as she fans water over them using her pectoral fins. The eggs hatch in 2
to 2-1/2 days, with the young free swimming within five days.
Tretocephalus can be kept in mixed community tanks of many types, not just
with other Rift Lake species. While aggressive, they're not usually vicious to anything
but conspecifics. However, aggressiveness increases dramatically while breeding, and
catfish especially may be viciously attacked, and either killed or maimed. I once kept a
school of twenty large wild adults in a hundred gallon tank, and when breeding behavior
finally started all hell broke loose, with several Trets and Plecos trashed badly. When
not spawning, Trets are a beautiful addition to a cichlid collection, and can be
successfully integrated into many community tanks. Appropriate additions to a Tret tank
would be clown loaches, redtail or rainbow sharks, large rainbows such as New Guinea Reds,
most barbs, large danios, and many other similarly sized fast moving fish.
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