By Jeff Michels, MAS

Fortunately the fish is as unusual as its name, otherwise who would care!

The shallows of Lake Tanganyika are home to some very specialized fish that make for some out of the ordinary aquarium residents. One of these specialized groups of fish is the goby cichlid complex. There are three genera Eretmodus, Spathodus, and Tanganicodus, which are then comprised of several species making up this group of "clown cichlids".

Have you ever seen a fish that couldn’t swim? These guys all lack a swim bladder and they sort of hop and beat their fins to move. After watching the "gobies" attempt at locomotion for a few minutes it’s easy to see why these fish are called clowns.

I’d seen numerous goby cichlids over the past six or seven years, but had always been scared to try these peculiar dwarf cichlids. Finally, about a year ago, a local store received six wild caught adult E. cyanostictus and I purchased what I thought was a pair. I had been watching the tank carefully for over a week and had noticed one large fish and one small fish keeping close together. This is what I assumed might be a pair.

The goby cichlids live in the extreme shallows of the lake, the surge zone, where they graze on algae growing on the rocks. In this high-energy location the fish need to be exceptionally stable so they don’t get pounded into the rocks or pulled out to deeper water by the surf. To insure that the fish "stays put" the clown cichlids have short stubby fins, a low squat build, and as mentioned before, no swim bladder. All these things insure that the fish stay low in the water and safe in the shallows. To make it easier to get at their food source, algae, their mouths are turned under, much like that of the Troupheus complex. This allows the little cichlid to eat with out having to change its angle, an otherwise impossibility in shallow water.

My two new prized possessions were placed in a bare bottom 40 breeder that had five or six 6" long by 2" wide PVC tubes for shelter. No other fish were in the aquarium. An Aquaclear 300 power filter and a submersible heater were the only other amenities present. Regular, let’s be real, semi-regular partial water changes were done using Milwaukee tap water. Things were left this way for about half a year and nothing was happening. The fish were being fed flake food several times daily and the occasional helping of frozen brine shrimp to help fatten them up. The "male" had a total length of 3" and the "female" was 2 ½". Even though the two fish hadn’t killed each other, a very common thing with goby cichlids, I wasn’t sure if I had a pair.

As if the water itself didn’t pose such a threat towards life you still have to worry about getting eaten. Very few aquatic predators, such as eels or large cichlids, come out of the lake into a few inches of water to get a snack. The birds keep these other predators away by eating them. But how do the goby cichlids deal if with livening in the bird-feeding zone? The goby cichlids have dealt with attacks from above in several different ways. To start with, the birds don’t care to eat a mouth full of spines. And these guys take advantage us this; they have one of the highest spiny counts in the cichlid world with up to 25! Not a bad way to keep a bird from trying to throw you down his throat. The color and patterning of these fish also helps to keep them alive. Down the length of their bodies they have vertical bands that help to blend the animal in with the sun spots that the constantly moving water make as the sun shines through. In addition to patterning the fish are pigmented with darker colors like browns, blacks, and grays. In addition to the dark and light alternating bands these cichlids come with bright blue spots on their heads, backs, and bodies. Geographic variants may have greater or fewer dots. And if neon blue spots weren’t enough many of the color varieties have fins edged in red and blue or gold. These muted colors with splashes of brilliance help to conceal the fish in with the earth tone pebbles and stones found on the edge of the lake.

Now I had a problem, my Paracyprichromis nigripinnis were getting picked on and needed to be moved. Where could I put them? You already know the answer. So in the two pair went with a few floating plastic plants for shelter. This seemed to be a good mix. The Paracyps. were much happier and the Eretmodus started coming out into sight more. But then it happened. While watching every one at feeding time and enjoying the happy mix I didn’t see the smaller goby cichlid. Great, the larger "goby" had been chasing the little one, did he kill her or did she jump out. It had to be one of the two. I did a quick look at the floor, nothing, just a happy breeding colony of dust bunnies thriving on the occasional dropped flake of food. The little one wasn’t in the tubes or plants either, where’d it go? Then I noticed a fish hiding vertically near the surface behind the Aquaclear intake tube. I grabbed a net and caught the fish out, assuming it had gotten beaten up. No, it looked fine. Just on the off chance I decided to have a look in the mouth. The first thing I saw were huge red fangs where teeth should be. And then I saw the babies. There were seven of the cute little guys with adult color and partial egg sacks. These beautiful 3/8" babies were placed in a tumbler and set bubbling in a separate 10gal tank.

In the wild goby cichlids form pairs that "mate for life". The pair bond is so strong that the fish even take turns housing the fish in their mouths, which is called bi-parental mouth brooding. This way both adults get to continue eating even when caring for the immature brood. As with most Tanganyikan mouth brooders a small number of eggs is produced, in this case 20-30, but the eggs are large. Because of the large amount of yolk the fry take several weeks longer to fully develop and digest all of their started food. Expect hungry babies when they are able to start "swimming" and begin looking for food.

The seven little babies looked great and were left to bubble. When I came down latter that night to feed every one I stopped to check on my latest spawn. They were dead! The other fry in the tank had picked at the egg sacks through the screen and killed every last goby cichlid. I learned my lesson about using small sponges on the bottoms of each tumbler. Trust me, I won’t forget again. The good news was I had a pair of Eretmodus. And since this first horror story I’ve learned the pairs spawning ritual of chase, chase, chase, and then hide. It hasn’t failed yet and I’ve happy to say I’ve now been able to raise several batches of fry each over twenty fish in size. I’ve yet to have the male hold any of the fry despite taking the juvenals out at several different ages. I wonder if the rich food, compared to algae, allows the female to hold them longer or if the male just hasn’t read the section of the book on bi-parental mouth brooding yet. I’ll have to copy that section for him.