Maylandia nkhunguense "Minos Reef"Metriaclima nkhunguense
Maylandia nkhunguense (Chilucha Reef, Minos Reef, Nkhungu Reef)
Minos Reef — MEE-nohs 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 Maylandia nkhunguense account →Specific to Minos 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 Maylandia nkhunguense.
The Minos Reef population
Maylandia nkhunguense "Minos Reef" is the Minos Reef population of Maylandia nkhunguense, a geographic colour form from the Mozambique coast of Lake Malawi in the south-central part of the lake. It is the same species as Maylandia nkhunguense, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Minos Reef fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Maylandia nkhunguense is a rock-dwelling mbuna from the northern half of Lake Malawi, a member of the zebra-mbuna group whose blue-based, dark-barred body plan defines the aquarium image of a Malawi cichlid. Its species epithet names Nkhungu Reef, one of the collection points along the northern shore where the species is documented — a naming pattern common among Lake Malawi's many locally restricted rock-dwellers. Like its relatives it grazes algae from open rock with comb-like teeth and defends a small territory year-round, one face among the dozens of similarly built mbuna that partition the lake's reefs by colour and geography rather than by diet.
Full Maylandia nkhunguense account →