Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Maylandia zebra

Maylandia zebra "Minos 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 zebra 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 zebra.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size4.4 in11.3 cm standard length
Temperature72–82 °F22–28 °C
pH7.7–8.8alkaline
Depth20–92 ft6–28 m
DietAufwuchs / algae grazer
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooderup to ~60 eggs (genus-typical ~20–60)
Sexual dimorphismYesDominant males brightest blue with bold bars and yellow anal egg-spots; females/subordinates duller. OB (orange-blotched) and O (solid orange) colour morphs occur and are sex-biased toward females.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Minos Reef population

Maylandia zebra "Minos Reef" is the Minos Reef population of Maylandia zebra, 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 zebra, 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 zebra, the zebra mbuna, is the archetypal rock-dwelling cichlid of Lake Malawi — a blue fish crossed by bold black bars that grazes the algal turf coating the lake's boulders. It is the namesake of the whole 'zebra complex,' a tangle of closely related, often barely distinguishable mbuna that has become one of the most intensively studied systems in the science of how species form. The fish is also at the centre of a stubborn naming dispute, sold and studied for decades under two competing genus names, Maylandia and Metriaclima, that taxonomists still cannot fully agree on.

Full Maylandia zebra account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Maylandia zebra "Minos Reef"
  2. FishBase — Maylandia zebra (Zebra mbuna)
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — zebra, Tilapia (Boulenger 1899); current status Maylandia zebra
  4. The ETYFish Project — Pseudocrenilabrinae (l-o): Maylandia / Metriaclima and Maylandia zebra etymology
  5. Scharpf, C. (2025) — An analysis of the Metriaclima vs. Maylandia (Teleostei: Cichlidae) genus-name dispute (Zootaxa); summary at ETYFish 'Name of the Week'
  6. Stauffer, Bowers, Kellogg & McKaye (1997) — A revision of the blue-black Pseudotropheus zebra complex from Lake Malawi, with a new genus and ten new species (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. 148:189–230)