Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Sciaenochromis sp. "Nyassae"

Sciaenochromis sp. "Nyassae" "Chidunga Rocks"

Chidunga Rocks — chee-DOON-gah ROKS (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 sp. "Nyassae" account →

Specific to Chidunga Rocks

  • 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 sp. "Nyassae".

CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size5.5 in14 cm total length
Temperature73–81 °F23–27 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth33–131 ft10–40 m
DietAmbush piscivore of small fish, hunting from cover near the rock-sand interface
Breedingmaternal mouthbroodernot documented for this form; genus-typical, several dozen eggs
Sexual dimorphismYesNot confidently documented for this form; genus-typical pattern is intense metallic blue breeding males against cryptic brown-grey, barred females.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chidunga Rocks population

Sciaenochromis sp. "Nyassae" "Chidunga Rocks" is the Chidunga Rocks population of Sciaenochromis sp. "Nyassae", 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 sp. "Nyassae", distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Chidunga Rocks fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Sciaenochromis sp. "Nyassae" is an undescribed predatory haplochromine from the south-central part of Lake Malawi, documented at Chidunga Rocks and Liwani. It belongs to a small genus best known for the electric-blue Sciaenochromis fryeri, and shares that genus's build: a torpedo-shaped ambush hunter of small fish. Its trade name borrows "nyassae," the Latinised form of Nyasa, the lake's former name — an epithet used for several genuinely described Malawi cichlids but applied here only as an informal field tag. It has no scientific name, no describing author, and no IUCN assessment.

Full Sciaenochromis sp. "Nyassae" account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Sciaenochromis sp. "Nyassae" "Chidunga Rocks"
  2. Sciaenochromis | Cichlid Room Companion (genus profile, author, type species, valid & undescribed species)
  3. Konings, A. 1993 — A revision of the genus Sciaenochromis Eccles & Trewavas, 1989 (Cichlids Yearbook 3:28-36)
  4. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes (Fricke, Eschmeyer & Van der Laan, eds., CAS) — searched: no valid name for the undescribed "Nyassae" form