Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Cynotilapia afra

Cynotilapia afra "Chiwi Rocks"

Chiwi Rocks — CHEE-wee ROKS (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 Cynotilapia afra account →

Specific to Chiwi Rocks

  • 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 Cynotilapia afra.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size4 in10.1 cm standard length
Temperature73–81 °F23–27 °C
pH8–8.5alkaline
Depth10–98 ft3–30 m
DietPlanktivore (algae, diatoms and zooplankton) with the dog-like unicuspid teeth suited to picking food from open water; territorial males supplement with aufwuchs grazed from rocks. Trophic level ~3.4 (FishBase).
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder; male defends a rock cave and spawns inside itsmall, roughly a dozen to ~30 eggs (in keeping with the fish's small size)
Sexual dimorphismYesStrong. Males deep black with broad pale-blue bars and a white dorsal margin; females plain silvery to brownish-grey. Geographic forms (most now C. zebroides) differ chiefly in male color.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chiwi Rocks population

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

Colour reference: living Chiwi Rocks fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Cynotilapia afra, the afra or dogtooth cichlid, is a small rock-dwelling mbuna endemic to Lake Malawi. Its name betrays its defining oddity: where almost every other mbuna combs algae with rows of close-set teeth, Cynotilapia carries widely spaced, dog-like canines and earns much of its living out in open water, picking plankton from the current. It is also a cautionary tale in cichlid taxonomy — the great majority of fish traded for decades as 'Cynotilapia afra' are now recognized as the separate species Cynotilapia zebroides, leaving the true afra surprisingly scarce in the hobby it once seemed to dominate.

Full Cynotilapia afra account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Cynotilapia afra "Chiwi Rocks"
  2. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Hemichromis afer / Cynotilapia afra (species record)
  3. FishBase — Cynotilapia afra (Afra cichlid)
  4. The ETYFish Project — Cichlidae (Pseudocrenilabrinae): Cynotilapia & afra etymology
  5. Tawil, P. 2011 — Description of a new cichlid species from Lake Malawi, with reexamination of Cynotilapia afra and Microchromis zebroides (Cybium 35(3):201-211, abstract)
  6. Li, Konings & Stauffer 2016 — A Revision of the Pseudotropheus elongatus species group, treating Microchromis as a junior synonym of Cynotilapia (Zootaxa)