Chidunga zebra

Care at a glance

Overview

The Chidunga zebra is a classic mbuna: colorful, territorial, and demanding in temperament rather than in water chemistry. Keep it as a group, ideally one male with several females, in a busy rock tank where no single fish can be singled out and bullied. It grazes and patrols the middle and lower water among the stones, so feed a mainly vegetable diet of spirulina flake and pellets and go easy on rich meaty foods. It is aggressive with rivals, so choose robust, similarly spirited mbuna as tankmates and stock the tank fully to spread the pressure. A group needs around 200 liters of rockwork.

In the wild

In the lake it lives over a small stretch of rocky Malawi shoreline, grazing the algae and tiny creatures of the aufwuchs film that coats the stones. This is hard, alkaline rift-lake water, so keep the pH high, between about 7.6 and 8.6, with a temperature of 24 to 28 C. Recreate the habitat with plenty of piled rock that forms caves and grazing surfaces over a sandy floor. Stable mineral-rich water and a stony, maze-like layout matter far more than plants.

Good to know

This is a locality-restricted member of Lake Malawi's zebra mbuna complex, in the family Cichlidae, reaching around 11 centimeters. Males run pale blue over darker bars while females stay plainer. The genus is written both Metriaclima and Maylandia, two names for the same group of rock-dwelling grazers. Like other mbuna it is an easy maternal mouthbrooder, the female holding eggs and fry in her mouth.

Did you know

Malawi's zebra mbuna split into countless local forms, each tied to its own reef or outcrop. Fish separated by only a short stretch of open sand, which they will not cross, can wear quite different colors, which is why so many are named for the exact rocks they came from.

Common questions

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