Northern blue melanochromis

Care at a glance

Overview

The northern blue melanochromis is an active mbuna from Lake Malawi; males turn a clean cobalt blue with no pale stripes, while females stay whitish with orange in the anal fin. It is a social fish kept as a group, usually one male with several females, but it is boisterous, and in the tank it can push smaller or meeker fish around. Choose tankmates with care: give it length, rockwork and equally robust rift-lake company. It keeps to the lower water among rock. Feed a varied diet of both vegetable and meaty foods. A tank of at least 250 liters with rock structure and open sand lanes lets it patrol and hold a territory.

In the wild

Melanochromis kaskazini lives along the northern coasts of Lake Malawi, in the intermediate zone where rock gives way to sand. The lake water is hard and alkaline, so aim for a temperature range of 24–28 C and a pH of 7.5–8.5. Build the tank with piles of rock for cover and territory, broken by open sand lanes, over a sand floor, to match the mixed rocky-sandy shore it patrols.

Good to know

Melanochromis kaskazini belongs to the cichlid family and reaches about 13 centimeters. It is a maternal mouthbrooder, the female holding the eggs and fry in her mouth. Males color up cobalt blue while females and young stay pale with an orange-tinted anal fin. The species name kaskazini is Kiswahili for northern, after its range along the north of the lake.

Did you know

In the wild this cichlid is not a fixed-territory fish; it roams the rocks in small foraging groups, hunting larger invertebrates and small fish, and its name simply means northern in Kiswahili, the language of its shoreline.

Common questions

Related species

• Loria's melanochromis

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• Deepwater melanochromis

  Melanochromis heterochromis

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• Blotch melanochromis

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• Wochepa melanochromis

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• 

  Chipokee cichlid

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• 

  Johanni cichlid

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