Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Melanochromis dialeptos

Melanochromis dialeptos "Border"

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 Melanochromis dialeptos account →

Specific to Border

  • 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 Melanochromis dialeptos.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size3.1 in8 cm standard length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth7–66 ft2–20 m
DietAufwuchs grazer (algae, diatoms; occasional catfish larvae)
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder (polygamous)~15 eggs
Sexual dimorphismYesStrongly reversed dichromatism: males dark blue-black with two thin pale blue stripes and black vermiculations across the full caudal fin; females and juveniles warm orange-gold with thin, jagged black horizontal stripes.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Border population

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

Colour reference: living Border fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Melanochromis dialeptos is a small, intensely coloured mbuna endemic to the eastern shore of Lake Malawi — one of the most geographically restricted and behaviourally ferocious of its genus. Males wear the genus's characteristic reversal: ink-dark with pale blue stripes, while females and juveniles glow warm orange-gold with thin, jagged black lines. The species was already well known in the hobby as 'Melanochromis sp. dwarf auratus' before Bowers and Stauffer formally described it in 1997, naming it after its most obvious trait: in Greek, dialeptos means 'very small'.

Full Melanochromis dialeptos account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Melanochromis dialeptos "Border"
  2. Bowers, N.J. & Stauffer, J.R. Jr. — 'Eight new species of rock-dwelling cichlids of the genus Melanochromis (Teleostei: Cichlidae) from Lake Malawi, Africa' (Ichthyol. Explor. Freshwat. 8(1): 49–70, 1997) [original description]
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Melanochromis dialeptos Bowers & Stauffer 1997 (species record, updated May 2026)
  4. FishBase — Melanochromis dialeptos (species summary page)
  5. GBIF — Melanochromis dialeptos Bowers & Stauffer, 1997 (backbone taxonomy)
  6. The ETYFish Project — Pseudocrenilabrinae (l–o): Melanochromis dialeptos etymology