Placidochromis milomo is one of those fish that people don’t keep that often. It is a very interesting fish that people should give another look. What first caught my eye was those big lips in all of the pictures. Later I found out the lips were only found on the wild individuals. The thick lips are used to suck prey out of openings. In the aquarium, the fishes lips are not used for what they are intended for and the large lips recede.
P. milomo can get about ten inches. Juveniles and females
have black and white stripes, with the males getting a blue head and
depending on how the light hits the body it could be a bright red or
blue. The lips look swollen but not like the wild fish’s
lips. Unfortunately, there are no good pictures of male
P. milomo in spawning colors. It is a very easy fish to take
care of, but not an easy fish to spawn. The dominant male is
aggressive to other conspecifics and other species when wanting to
spawn.(Ed note, when isn’t a male wanting to spawn?) When not spawning
it is peaceful with the black bars of the females and juveniles
showing. Given proper conditions it is easy to spawn, but the female
does not carry the eggs very well. The male probably gets too
aggressive towards the female and she either eats or spits out the
eggs. The first time I saw them spawn, the male attracted the female
to a flat rock and they did their circle
there. He spawned with
two females that day. The fish have spawned three more times since
then over a five week period, with the females carrying about three
days. Today, one of the females tube has dropped and the male is
brilliantly colored. He has however dug a pit to the bottom of the
aquarium. But again, when the male and female started to do their
circle
it was on a flat rock at about a 450 angle. In the wild
P. milomo eats invertebrates. In the aquarium the fish will eat
anything, with a good variety of food being the best. It is an active
and attractive fish that will show off nicely in a aquarium if given
the chance.