Neolamprologus brichardi

Above are photos of adult Brichardi, a Brichardi tank, and a close up of adults with fry.

These are beautiful little African Cichlids. They are commonly placed into the category known as "Fairy Cichlids" because of their size and temperament.

A pair of these fish will live happily in a 15 gallon aquarium, and if the water conditions are correct will even breed in this size of a tank as you can see by the above photos. They require hard alkaline water with a pH of about 7.6 to 8.2 . Extra minerals are required in the water to ensure that the eggs are fertile and to stop these fish from developing goitre ( known as Malawi Bloat in these fish ). With this in mind I add Tetra Cichlid Vital to the aquarium ( for the iodine ), two tablespoons/10 gallons of Epson Salts for the Magnesium,  and 2 teaspoons/10 gallons of commercial salt substitute ( "No Salt" ) for the Potassium. I continue to replace these elements whenever I do water changes.

The fish like a warm temperature ( I keep mine at about 80 F ), and stable conditions. They love live food, and frozen blood worms are a real treat, but they will eat flaked food as well.

The adults lay eggs inside caves where you are unlikely to see them and the young hatch in a couple of days. I then feed the fry with small amount of hard boiled egg yolk which I drop into the tank in very small quantities with a turkey baster. ( you can see this on top of the aquarium in one of the photos above ). They fry grow fairly rapidly,  and then the adults breed again......this is when you see something totally unique happen;

The first batch of fry will actually help the parents look after their younger siblings, and so the parents will have batch after batch of fry without any being chased away from the "Home Cave".

This is without doubt my most favourite of African Cichlids.

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