Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Cyathopharynx furcifer

Cyathopharynx furcifer "Chimba"

Chimba — CHEEM-bah (approx.)

The fish

How this cichlid is built, and everything about how it lives, eats and breeds, is shared with the species — this page doesn't repeat it.

Read the full Cyathopharynx furcifer account →

Specific to Chimba

  • Collection locality & coordinates
  • Local coloration — best judged from the living-fish photo
  • Kept as a single-provenance line, never crossed with other collection points

Care facts below are the species' — shared with Cyathopharynx furcifer.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2025
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size8.5 in21 cm total length
Temperature75–81 °F24–27 °C
pH8.6–9.3alkaline
Hardness (GH)very hardup to 357 ppm
Depth16–82 ft5–25 m
DietMicro-feeder: drifts and picks plankton from the water column and grazes fine algae/biocover from sand and rock; long coiled gut, low-protein. Konings: 'a lot of food but only a little meat.'
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder (lek-spawning; males build large sand-crater bowers)~10–40 eggs (genus-typical; varies with female size)
Sexual dimorphismYesStrong. Nuptial males are brilliantly iridescent blue/green and gold with greatly elongated, yellow-tipped pelvic streamers; females and subordinate males stay plain silvery and short-finned.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chimba population

Cyathopharynx furcifer "Chimba" is the Chimba population of Cyathopharynx furcifer, a geographic colour form from the Zambia coast of Lake Tanganyika in the southern part of the lake. It is the same species as Cyathopharynx furcifer, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Chimba fish at tanganyika.si →

About the species

Cyathopharynx furcifer, the featherfin cichlid, is a sand-dwelling maternal mouthbrooder endemic to Lake Tanganyika, famous on two counts: the trailing pelvic fins that stream behind a courting male like ribbons, and the enormous crater-shaped sand nests those males sculpt with their mouths to woo passing females. A displaying male flashes metallic blue and green that seem to switch on and off with the angle of the light, an effect one biologist likened to a Morpho butterfly's wing. Ad Konings calls the genus the lake's "fairytale cichlids," and the description fits: beautiful, demanding, and built around a lek-breeding system that the wild lake stages on a far grander scale than any aquarium can, it sits at the intersection of the rift lake's rocky reefs and open sand flats.

Full Cyathopharynx furcifer account →

Sources

  1. tanganyika.si — Cyathopharynx furcifer 'Chimba'
  2. Cyathopharynx furcifer (Featherfin cichlid) — FishBase
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Cyathopharynx furcifer (species record)
  4. Konings, A. — "Fairytale cichlids of the genus Cyathopharynx", Cichlids Yearbook vol. 5 (Cichlid Press)
  5. Konings, A. — Cyathopharynx furcifer species account, Cichlids Yearbook vol. 1 (Cichlid Press)
  6. Takahashi et al. (2012) — Genetic and Morphological Evidence Implies Existence of Two Sympatric Species in Cyathopharynx furcifer (Int. J. Evol. Biol.)
  7. Schaedelin & Taborsky (2010) — Female choice of a non-bodily ornament: cichlid sand craters in Cyathopharynx furcifer (Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol.)
  8. IUCN Red List — Cyathopharynx furcifer "Chimba"