Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Aulonocara nyassae

Aulonocara nyassae "Masasa Reef"

Masasa Reef — mah-SAH-sah REEF (approx.)

The fish

How this cichlid is built, and everything about how it lives, eats and breeds, is shared with the species — this page doesn't repeat it.

Read the full Aulonocara nyassae account →

Specific to Masasa Reef

  • Collection locality & coordinates
  • Local coloration — best judged from the living-fish photo
  • Kept as a single-provenance line, never crossed with other collection points

Care facts below are the species' — shared with Aulonocara nyassae.

IUCNNEAR THREATENED · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size3.9 in10 cm standard length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth49 ft15 m
DietSand-sifting 'sonar-feeding' benthic invertivore
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder (ovophile)not recorded for this species; typically a few dozen large eggs in Aulonocara
Sexual dimorphismYesStrong: territorial breeding males turn dark blue; females and non-territorial males are pale sandy-yellow to silvery.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Masasa Reef population

Aulonocara nyassae "Masasa Reef" is the Masasa Reef population of Aulonocara nyassae, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the southern part of the lake. It is the same species as Aulonocara nyassae, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Masasa Reef fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Aulonocara nyassae is a small sand-dwelling peacock endemic to Lake Malawi, described by Charles Tate Regan in 1922 from the Lake Nyasa cichlid collections. It is the nominal species of the famous peacock genus, yet it is one of its most poorly known members: a roughly 100 mm fish of the open sandy floor in the lake's southeastern arm, found in small foraging groups well below 20 metres. Its name has been one of the most widely misapplied in the entire Malawi hobby, pinned for decades onto a parade of brightly coloured rock-dwelling peacocks that are not, in fact, this species. The real Aulonocara nyassae is a sand specialist that hunts by 'sonar-feeding' — hovering motionless over the bottom, sensing buried invertebrates with enormously enlarged head pores, then diving snout-first into the sand to seize them.

Full Aulonocara nyassae account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Aulonocara nyassae "Masasa Reef"
  2. Konings, A. (1995) — 'A review of the sand-dwelling species of the genus Aulonocara, with the description of three new species' (The Cichlids Yearbook 5: 26–36, Cichlid Press)
  3. FishBase — Aulonocara nyassae (Emperor cichlid)
  4. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Aulonocara nyassae Regan, 1922 (species record)
  5. GBIF — Aulonocara nyassae Regan, 1922
  6. malawi.si (Stuart M. Grant / M.K. Oliver database) — Aulonocara nyassae ('Masasa Reef' variant)