Cyathopharynx sp. 'blue flush' "Izinga Island"

Izinga Islandee-ZEEN-gah EYE-land (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 sp. 'blue flush' account →

Specific to Izinga Island

  • 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 sp. 'blue flush'.

IUCNNOT EVALUATED
NEnot on the EX–LC scale
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size8 in20 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 Izinga Island population

Cyathopharynx sp. 'blue flush' "Izinga Island" is the Izinga Island population of Cyathopharynx sp. 'blue flush', a geographic colour form from the Tanzania coast of Lake Tanganyika in the central part of the lake. It is the same species as Cyathopharynx sp. 'blue flush', distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Izinga Island fish at tanganyika.si

About the species

Cyathopharynx sp. 'blue flush' is an undescribed featherfin cichlid of Lake Tanganyika — a distinctive geographic colour form (or small complex of forms) that aquarists recognize and trade and that appears in the biotope literature, but which has no formal scientific name yet. Like the lake's other locality forms, it is kept and bred by collection point, and much of its value to hobbyists rests on that documented provenance. Buy it as a labelled single-origin group, or the local nuptial colour that makes it worth keeping is quickly lost.

Full Cyathopharynx sp. 'blue flush' account →

Sources

  1. tanganyika.si — Cyathopharynx sp. 'blue flush' Izinga Island
  2. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes (California Academy of Sciences)