subject: Tropical Fish of Lake Malawi [print this page] Tropical Fish of Lake Malawi Tropical Fish of Lake Malawi
Fish from Lake Malawi in Africa come in many beautiful colours, shapes and sizes. They are readily available for your home aquarium and generally a great choice of fish for your aquarium. As long as some general rules are adhered to.
Lake Malawi is a large, freshwater lake in East Africa and is the eighth largest lake in the world. Recent years has seen an abundance of Malawi cichlids available to purchase in pet shops and aquatic centres but they are not the average community fish. Lake Malawicichlids are extremely territorial fish and will defend their territory to the death, especially during breeding. This means that they must only be kept in a species aquarium with other Lake Malawi cichlids. Fighting and squabbling will happen in a Malawi cichlid tank but as long as the correct fish are chosen this should not cause many problems. A great way to combat overly aggressive aquariums is to slightly over stock your tank, making sure you have good filtration to cope with the amount of fish. This provides a more diluted aggression and will generally result in a calmer tank.
Cichilds of Lake Malawi also require a slightly altered diet to normalcommunity fish. They generally rasp on algae stuck to rocks in the lake, with the exception of a few Haplochromis and other species that may predate on insects and smaller fish, and therefor their diet in the aquarium should replicate this. Try to feed you Lake Malawi cichlids a vegetable orspirulina pellet or frozen food. There are many foods available specifically manufactured for Lake Malawi cichlids.
So as long as you research you species, feed them correctly and keep your aquarium well filtered and maintained Lake Malawin cichlids can be a great fish to keep and will provide hours of entertainment and no doubt some baby fish also!
