Steatocranus tinanti fry fighting for territory
I recently went to local hobbyist’s fishroom and saw a very interesting fish. It looked like a catfish but had a hump on its head. When I asked my friend, he told me that it was a cichlid. I was very impressed by this catfish-like humpy dwarf cichlid, which I came to know as Steatocranus tinanti [common names include the Lion Head or Slender Buffalo Head cichlid – Ed.]. I asked him if he had any fry to share and luckily he did.
They rarely leave the substrate and come up in the water column. I have seen them doing this only when they are hungry and I approach them.
I received 5 fry; they were about 4 months old. After putting them in a quarantine tank, I started reading about them and started working on a tank for them. They are called rheophilous cichlids (rheophilous means an organism that thrives in running water). They come from West Africa where the rivers are fast flowing and have deep sand beds. These fish love to dig in the sand. So I setup a 15G tank and put a sand layer of around half an inch as the substrate. Since they are very territorial, it’s good to have rocks and caves to break the direct eye contact. I also added a HOB (Hang-On-Back) filter which keeps the water moving constantly.
They love to hide in the caves
I try to feed live food to all my fish. Black worms (only from reputable and trusted source), glassworms, white worms make great live feed for these fish. They would eat pretty much everything that you’ll throw in the tank. They are not at all fussy eaters.
Regular water changes are very important because they produce a lot of watse
Here’s a small video of these fish devouring blackworms. As you can see, they absolutely love blackworms:
-Sumer
