Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Hemitaeniochromis brachyrhynchus

Hemitaeniochromis brachyrhynchus "Boadzulu Island"

Boadzulu Island — boh-ah-DZOO-loo 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 Hemitaeniochromis brachyrhynchus account →

Specific to Boadzulu 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 Hemitaeniochromis brachyrhynchus.

CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size6 in15 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Hardness (GH)slightly hardup to 214 ppm
Depth7–98 ft2–30 m
DietPredator of small fish and aquatic invertebrates in open or semi-open water
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooderNot documented; estimated modest by analogy with similarly sized congeners
Sexual dimorphismYesNot well documented for this species; breeding males are expected to intensify in colour and finnage as in most Lake Malawi haplochromines.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Boadzulu Island population

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

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

About the species

Hemitaeniochromis brachyrhynchus is a slender, predatory haplochromine cichlid from Lake Malawi, one of several elongate mid-water hunters that David Eccles and Ethel Trewavas grouped into the genus Hemitaeniochromis in their landmark 1989 reclassification of the lake's cichlid fauna. Its species epithet, from the Greek for short-snouted, marks it out from more extremely elongate congeners such as Hemitaeniochromis urotaenia. Like the rest of its genus it hunts small fish and invertebrates in open or semi-open water rather than grazing rock or sand, and it remains a fish known mainly to specialists and collection-locality records rather than to the general aquarium trade.

Full Hemitaeniochromis brachyrhynchus account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Hemitaeniochromis brachyrhynchus "Boadzulu Island"
  2. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — search interface (authority for the valid name)
  3. FishBase — Hemitaeniochromis brachyrhynchus species summary
  4. Eccles, D. H. & Trewavas, E. 1989 — Malawian Cichlid Fishes: The Classification of Some Haplochromine Genera
  5. Konings, A. — Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat (Cichlid Press)