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SOME EXPERIENCES WITH LAKE
TANGANYIKAN SHELL DWELLERS
Lake Tanganyikan cichlids have always held a special place in my aquariums. Among my favorites have been the feisty little shell dwellers, mainly from the Neolamprologus family, (or Lamprologus depending on who you listen to). Not all of them are exceptionally colorful or come to the surface of the tank to beg for food, but their preference for housing themselves and raising their brood in empty snail shells has always drawn me to them. I’ve found their feeding and care is not necessarily difficult, as long as some basics are met. The majority of the shelldwellers can be housed and bred in 10 gallon tanks, although I’ve found it best to give them some space. Being from Lake Tanganyika, shelldwellers prefer hard water, and I find that housing them in our Zeeland tap water suits them fine. I use a mix of aragonite and crushed coral substrate, which helps to further buffer the water. Shell dwellers are proficient excavators, and can move a large amount of substrate in a short amount of time, so placing rooted plants in their aquarium is usually not a good choice. For breeding habitats I use food grade escargot shells, which the fish seem to love. A few rocks placed strategically in the tank breaks up sight lines, and provides some structure and escape from the dominant fish. I’ve found all the shelldwellers I’ve kept love newly hatched brine shrimp; adults and fry alike. The adults are not finicky, and will eat just about anything you feed them. For the babies I supplement the live baby brine shrimp delivered to them via a turkey baster with Hikari Fry Bites or finely crushed flake food. I’ve also observed females chewing up flake food, and “spitting” it into the mouths of their breeding shells for their fry to eat. I have not had problems with large water changes as long as a good dechlorinator is used and the temperature of the replacement water is consistent with the tank temperature. In the winter I also leave the buckets sit for a time before pouring into the tank. This seems to “de-gas” the water, and eliminate a lot of the fine bubbles seen in the replacement water. The biggest “secret” that I’ve found when breeding shelldwellers is to keep pairs in a tank by themselves. In the past I tried keeping livebearers and other Tanganyikan cichlids in the same tanks with breeding pairs, but with the exception of Neolamprologus multifasciatus, I never had more than a few fry survive. By chance I noticed some newly free swimming fry from a Neolamprologus hecqui spawn around one of the female’s shells and was pretty excited. I had not had any success getting any fry from my colony of these fish, and was getting rather frustrated. My N. multifasciatus took good care of their fry with other fish in the tank, so why not these? Only until I happened to see the N. hecqui fry start spreading out across the whole bottom of the tank did it finally occur to me that the fry were getting picked off by the other adult fish in the tank. Once the pair of spawning hecqui’s were placed in their own tank I soon realized how prolific they could be! I had more hecqui’s than I knew what to do with. This solo tank formula worked well with the other shell dwellers I’ve bred since. I currently have a trio of Neolamprologus brevis that filled a 20 gallon tank with fry, and a pair of Neolamprologus signatus that raised more than 30 fry successfully. I eventually had to pull the male signatus from the tank because the female was over protective of the fry. The most difficult for me were the Neolamprologus similis. Although visually similar to the multifasciatus, I found them more difficult to breed, and were not nearly as prolific. I eventually found they did best in pairs, with plenty of shells and structure for the other similis to escape into to get away from the dominant male. A small mirror placed next to the glass outside the front of the tank sometimes provided some distraction, as the male would take out his territorial aggressions at his own reflection. My Neolamprologus mulitfasciatus, or multies, were extremely successful at raising their broods in a Tanganyikan community tank. They eventually took over half of a 55 gallon tank, and their colony created an impressive sight. I made the mistaken assumption that I could breed any of the Tanganyikan shell dwellers in a community tank setting and get fry in this manner. They will have spawns, but the chances of them successfully raising a large brood increases significantly when they have the tank to themselves. The fry like to wander from the parent’s shells, and without cover are easy pickings. I’d recommend the multies as a first shell dweller, although they seem to be harder to find at auction lately. Besides the species mentioned previously, there are a number of other shell dwellers that can be kept and bred with relative ease. These include Neolamprologus ocellatus, Neolamprologus caudopunctatus, and Altolamprologus compressiceps ”Sumbu dwarf”. Give them a home of their own, and they just might surprise you with your own school of shellies. Ken Zeedyk
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Neolamprologus
brevis male
Neolamprologus
hecqui with fry
Neolamprologus
similis