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there is links to description and pictures of our Tanganyika Cichlids.
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Lake Tanganyika lies 773m above sea level in the East African Rift Valley, which is part of the Great Rift Valley system, the world's most spectacular geological depression. Tremendous volcanic activity and shifting of the earth's surface resulted in the formation of the African rift valleys. It stretches from the Nil-valley true the eastern Africa and down to Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi. |
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The 676km long Tanganyika is the longest freshwater lake in the world and the second deepest lake after Lake Baikal in Russia. The immense depth is because it lies in the Great Rift Valley, which also has created its steep shoreline. It reaches a depth of 1433m, which is an astounding 642m below sea level. | ||||||
Lake Tanganyika is bordered on the north by Burundi, on the east by Tanzania, on the south by Zambia, and on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, formerly Zaire). The lake covers about 32,900 sq km (Denmark covers 44.000 sq km) The Lake contains volume of water seven times more than that of Lake Victoria (70.484 sq km), which is the largest in Africa, but only the top 183m, moved by storms and the winds, provide for all the life forms within Lake Tanganyika, the rest is 'dead' or fossil water that may be as much as 20 million years old
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The chemical composition of Lake Tanganyika and other African lake waters varies and includes features rarely found elsewhere. The water of Lake Tanganyika is very mineralized, it has the highest concentration of mineral salts, twice as much as found in Lake Malawi and three time as much as in Lake Victoria.
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The lake receives water from different rivers with
different chemical compositions. The most important one is the Ruzizi
River in the north which supplies more than 50 % of the total of dissolved
salts. The only outlet from Lake Tanganyika is the Lukuga River, which
starts from the middle part of western coast and flows westward to join
the Zaire River draining into the Atlantic.
The surface temperature of Lake Tanganyika ranges from 23-31°C, although most fish inhabit areas with a temperature from 24-29°C. The water is medium hard with a dH from 7-11, and the pH varies from 7.8 to 9.0. Lake Tanganyika boasts over 350 species of fish of which most are endemic. Like Lake Malawi (2-4 million years old), Lake Tanganyika is extremely old, it is thought to date back 9 to12 million years, and the combination of its age and ecological isolation has led to the evolution of unique fish populations, 140 years after the Lake was “discovered”, one can still fine new spices of fish in the Lake.
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