Sciaenochromis psammophilus "Kande Island"Electric Blue Kande
Sciaenochromis psammophilus (Cobwe, Kande Island, Mazinzi Reef)
Kande Island — KAHN-deh EYE-land (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 Sciaenochromis psammophilus account →Specific to Kande Island
- 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 Sciaenochromis psammophilus.
The Kande Island population
Sciaenochromis psammophilus "Kande Island" is the Kande Island population of Sciaenochromis psammophilus, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the central part of the lake. It is the same species as Sciaenochromis psammophilus, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Kande Island fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Sciaenochromis psammophilus, the "electric blue kande," is a sand-dwelling predatory cichlid endemic to Lake Malawi and named for that very habit — psammophilus is Greek for "sand-loving." It is the close, often-confused cousin of the famous electric blue hap (Sciaenochromis fryeri): a silvery-blue male barred with dark vertical stripes and washed with yellow in the dorsal and tail, hunting small fish a hand's breadth above the open sand. Described by Ad Konings only in 1993, it remains uncommon in the hobby and is best understood as the dark-barred, yellow-finned member of an electric-blue genus that the aquarium trade has spent decades muddling together.
Full Sciaenochromis psammophilus account →Sources
- malawi.si — Sciaenochromis psammophilus "Kande Island"
- FishBase — Sciaenochromis psammophilus (Electric blue kande)
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Sciaenochromis psammophilus (species record)
- GBIF — Sciaenochromis psammophilus occurrence search
- Konings, A. 1993 — A revision of the genus Sciaenochromis Eccles & Trewavas, 1989 (The Cichlids Yearbook vol. 3, pp. 28–36; original description of S. psammophilus, Cichlid Press)
- FishBase — references used for Sciaenochromis psammophilus
- IUCN Red List — Sciaenochromis psammophilus "Kande Island"