Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Protomelas labridens

Protomelas labridens "Mbamba Bay"

Mbamba Bay — m-BAHM-bah BAY (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 Protomelas labridens account →

Specific to Mbamba Bay

  • 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 Protomelas labridens.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size7.1 in18 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth3–16 ft1–5 m
DietMolluscivore / invertivore — snails and invertebrates from vegetation
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder~30–60 eggs (genus-typical for mid-sized Malawi haps; no published count for this species)
Sexual dimorphismYesBreeding males develop a blue head and a broad yellow anal-fin band with whitish egg-dummy spots; females and non-breeding males are silver-beige with two dark lateral stripes; males grow larger than females.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Mbamba Bay population

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

Colour reference: living Mbamba Bay fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Protomelas labridens is a small, understated haplochromine cichlid endemic to Lake Malawi, its satellite Lake Malombe, and the upper Shire River — found wherever shallow, sandy bottoms carry beds of Vallisneria and Potamogeton. What sets it apart from its more colourful congeners is not spectacle but craft: the fish carries slightly enlarged pharyngeal teeth tuned for crushing snails, and breeding males carve broad sand platforms in the weed beds to court females above them. Rarely exported and seldom written about, it remains one of Malawi's least-known haps — which makes it all the more interesting.

Full Protomelas labridens account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Protomelas labridens "Mbamba Bay"
  2. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Protomelas labridens (species entry, updated 2026)
  3. FishBase — Protomelas labridens summary (speccode 2113)
  4. Trewavas, E. 1935 — A synopsis of the cichlid fishes of Lake Nyasa (Annals and Magazine of Natural History, ser. 10, v. 16: 65–118)
  5. Eccles, D.H. & Trewavas, E. 1989 — Malawian cichlid fishes: the classification of some Haplochromine genera (Lake Fish Movies, Herten) — lectotype selection p. 45
  6. Konings, A. 2016 — Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat, 5th ed. (Cichlid Press) — p. 294