Sciaenochromis psammophilus "Mazinzi Reef"
Mazinzi Reef — mah-ZEEN-zee 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 Sciaenochromis psammophilus account →Specific to Mazinzi 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 Sciaenochromis psammophilus.
The Mazinzi Reef population
Sciaenochromis psammophilus "Mazinzi Reef" is the Mazinzi Reef population of Sciaenochromis psammophilus, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the southern 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 Mazinzi Reef 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 "Mazinzi Reef"
- 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