Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Cyathopharynx furcifer

Cyathopharynx furcifer "Lyamembe"

Lyamembe — lyah-MEHM-beh (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 Lyamembe

  • 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 Lyamembe population

Cyathopharynx furcifer "Lyamembe" is the Lyamembe population of Cyathopharynx furcifer, a geographic colour form from the Tanzania coast of Lake Tanganyika in the north-central 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 Lyamembe 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 'Lyamembe'
  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 "Lyamembe"