Mbamba Bay
m-BAHM-bah BAY (approx.)
The atlas records 22 collection-point forms from Mbamba Bay, across 12 genera.
11.2838°S 34.7979°E
Mbamba Bay is a bay on Lake Malawi's Tanzanian shore, with a jetty that has served as a boat landing and dive site.
Where it is
Mbamba Bay is on the western shore of Lake Malawi, in its central third (125 mi south of the lake's northern tip).
Nearest collection points: Sambia Reef 1.2 mi west · Chuwa 2.2 mi south · Tundu Rocks 2.5 mi north-west
Shore, third and distances are measured from the coordinates above against the lake’s mapped outline.
The water
Lake-wide measured chemistry of Lake Malawi — collection points share their lake's water; site-specific figures are shown only where the literature records them.
Nearest measured station: Salima (south-east shore) (~278 km) — Conductivity 235 µS/cm
Surface temperature here
Across May–Nov, monthly means run 76 °F to 82 °F — coolest in Aug. Measured by satellite 1995–2023: the daily median of clear readings within 10 km of the site (931 clear days). The rainy-season months are usually too cloudy to measure and are left blank.
Temperature: ESA Climate Change Initiative, Lakes_cci v3.0 (Asfour et al. 2026; doi:10.5285/a56dba09df8a42ec9fba8b8c7a5e1f69). Chemistry on this page remains the lake's own.
The site
Site photographs from 1995 show diving off the Mbamba Bay Jetty and identify nearby landmarks visible from the bay — Chuwa Hill, Mbamba Island (also called Ngkuyo Island), and Sambia Reef.
Each entry below is the population of that species recorded here — the form aquarists keep and breed as a distinct, provenance-labelled line. Crossing forms from different collection points is considered hybridisation in the hobby.