Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Copadichromis melas

Copadichromis melas "Cobwe"

Cobwe — KOH-bweh (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 Copadichromis melas account →

Specific to Cobwe

  • 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 Copadichromis melas.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size3.5 in8.9 cm standard length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.5–8.5alkaline
Depth33–49 ft10–15 m
DietUtaka zooplanktivore (also benthic invertebrates)
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooderNot counted for C. melas; genus-typical ~20-40 eggs for a small (~9 cm) Copadichromis (cf. ~60 in the larger C. borleyi, FishBase)
Sexual dimorphismYesFemales and juveniles silvery with three black body spots; breeding males entirely black, including the anal fin (no coloured margin, spots, or streaks).
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Cobwe population

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

Colour reference: living Cobwe fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Copadichromis melas is a small utaka cichlid known only from the Mozambican shore of Lake Malawi, where it lives along the sand–rock interface and picks plankton out of the water just above the bottom. It is one of the lake's many shoaling, zooplankton-feeding haplochromines, but it stands out for one striking trait: a breeding male turns completely, inky black — fins and all — which is exactly what its name records. Long traded in the hobby under the placeholder name "Midnight mloto," it was formally described only in 2006 and remains a localized, little-studied member of the Copadichromis mbenjii group.

Full Copadichromis melas account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Copadichromis melas "Cobwe"
  2. FishBase — Copadichromis melas (Stauffer & Konings, 2006)
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Copadichromis melas (species record)
  4. malawi.si — Copadichromis melas 'Mala Point' (Stuart Grant / M.K. Oliver database)
  5. Stauffer, J.R. & Konings, A. 2006. Review of Copadichromis (Teleostei: Cichlidae) with the description of a new genus and six new species. Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters 17(1):9–42
  6. Stauffer, J.R. — A new species of Copadichromis (Cichlidae) from Thumbi West Island, Lake Malawi (Penn State / Stauffer lab publications)