Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Chindongo sp. "Aggressive Brown"

Chindongo sp. "Aggressive Brown" "Harbour Island"

Harbour Island — HAR-ber EYE-land (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 Chindongo sp. "Aggressive Brown" account →

Specific to Harbour Island

  • 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 Chindongo sp. "Aggressive Brown".

CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size4 in10 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Hardness (GH)very hardup to 446 ppm
Depth7–49 ft2–15 m
DietAlgae/Aufwuchs grazer, rasping filamentous algae and associated invertebrates from rock
Breedingmaternal mouthbroodernot documented for this form; expected modest (genus-typical, a few dozen eggs)
Sexual dimorphismYesBoth sexes plain brown/olive with faint barring; males darken further and intensify colour when displaying or sparring.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Harbour Island population

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

Colour reference: living Harbour Island fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Chindongo sp. "Aggressive Brown" is an undescribed rock-dwelling cichlid from the southern arm of Lake Malawi, known to hobbyists and field observers from Harbour Island and Mumbo Island in the Lake Malawi National Park area. It has never been given a formal scientific name; the trade tag describes exactly what collectors and aquarists have found — a plain brown-bodied mbuna whose males are unusually, almost notoriously, combative even by the standards of a genus built around territorial rock disputes. It belongs to Chindongo, a genus of small algae-grazing mbuna that Ad Konings split from Pseudotropheus in 2016, and it is best understood as one of several locality forms in that group still awaiting formal description.

Full Chindongo sp. "Aggressive Brown" account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Chindongo sp. "Aggressive Brown" "Harbour Island"
  2. malawi.si — Chindongo species and locality-form database (Konings-based; distribution, biotope)
  3. Cichlid Room Companion — Chindongo genus and mbuna taxonomy (Ad Konings, curator)
  4. Konings, A. — Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat (Cichlid Press; foremost Malawi field authority)