Lake Malawi Cichlid Views
With this vast quantity of species and a variety of habitats in Lake Malaw, there is much diversity in the cichlids. Malawi Cichlids include the energetic rock-dwelling cichlids from the Mbuna group, like the popular Zebra Cichlids. But many of the Malawi Cichlids are from the Haplochromis group, often referred to as Haps or Haplochromis cichlids in the aquarium hobby. These cichlids inhabit both sandy areas and open waters.
The Haplochromis group is the largest group in the Cichlidae family, with 213 described species as of 2007. Many of the species of this group are endemic to Lake Malawi. Cichlids from this group are generally larger than the mbuna cichlids and many species, like the spectacular Peacock Cichlids, are also more peaceful.
Malawi Cichlid Habitats Lake Malawi, along with Lake Tanganyika, is one of the two great rift lakes in Eastern Africa. These lakes formed millions of years ago as the result of tectonic plates shifting. This created a long tear in the earth's crust, which then filled with water to form these massive, deep sea-sized lakes. The waters of Lake Malawi are known for clarity and stability as far as pH and other water chemistries. This is the result of streams feeding into Lake Malawi having a high in mineral content, which along with evaporations resulted in alkaline water that is highly mineralized.
There is estimated to be over 800 species of cichlids from Lake Malawi, with about 300 species currently named. The regions in Lake Malawi that these cichlids inhabit include rocky areas, sandy areas, midwater areas, or they can be a combination of two or all three of these types. There is a much larger population in of Haplochromis cichlids than there are of the rock-dwelling Mbuna cichlids because they are not bound to isolated rocky regions
Lake Malawi Cichlid Images
