Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Maylandia phaeos

Maylandia phaeos "Undu Reef"

Undu Reef — OON-doo 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 phaeos account →

Specific to Undu 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 phaeos.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size3.4 in8.65 cm standard length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth16–98 ft5–30 m
DietAufwuchs scraper (diatoms and cyanobacteria)
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder10–30 eggs (malawi.si field data)
Sexual dimorphismYesTerritorial males blue with 7–9 black vertical bars and a dark dorsal submarginal band; females and juveniles yellow (Flavifemina group) — among the most visually dimorphic mbuna.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Undu Reef population

Maylandia phaeos "Undu Reef" is the Undu Reef population of Maylandia phaeos, a geographic colour form from the Tanzania coast of Lake Malawi in the northern part of the lake. It is the same species as Maylandia phaeos, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Undu Reef fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Maylandia phaeos is a rock-dwelling mbuna cichlid endemic to a narrow band of the central-eastern shoreline of Lake Malawi, from Cobwé in Mozambique northward to Undu Point in Tanzania. Its breeding males are a clean steel-blue crossed with seven to nine narrow black vertical bars and a distinctive dark submarginal band in the dorsal fin — the mark that gave the species its name, from the Greek for dusk. Females of this species belong to the so-called Flavifemina group: where most mbuna females are cryptically barred, phaeos females are strikingly yellow, making the pair the most visually mismatched couple at any reef it inhabits.

Full Maylandia phaeos account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Maylandia phaeos "Undu Reef"
  2. FishBase — Maylandia phaeos (Stauffer, Bowers, Kellogg & McKaye, 1997), summary page (SpecCode 50172)
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Metriaclima phaeos / Maylandia phaeos, species record (spid 64700), updated May 2026
  4. GBIF — Maylandia phaeos (Stauffer, Bowers, Kellogg & McKaye, 1997), taxon key 2373000
  5. The ETYFish Project — Cichlidae (Pseudocrenilabrinae, l–o): Maylandia phaeos etymology ('dusk, dusky dorsal band')
  6. Stauffer, J.R. Jr., Bowers, N.J., Kellogg, K.A. and McKaye, K.R. 1997 — 'A revision of the blue-black Pseudotropheus zebra (Teleostei: Cichlidae) complex from Lake Malawi, Africa, with a description of a new genus and ten new species.' Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. 148:189–230 (original description, via FishBase ref. 27596)