Varieties of African Cichlids

African cichlids are colorful, beautiful freshwater fish, and with estimates of more than 2,000 species, they are also one of the most diverse groups of fish in the freshwater hobby. Fish hobbyists loosely describe and categorize cichlids based on the lakes they inhabit. In these lakes, individual cichlid species have become specialists at surviving the hard, alkaline waters of the deep lakes.

  1. Lake Malawi Cichlids

    • The Lake Malawi cichlids are some of the most colorful freshwater fish; these include the appropriately named peacock cichlids, a group of flashy-looking but relatively peaceful fish that come in a variety of colors. Mbuna, or rock-dwelling cichlids, also live in Malawi, as do more than 200 species of haplochromis. Hobbyists refer to the Malawi cichlids as "rift lake" species, due to the Malawi lake's formation along a major fault line to the west of Tanzania and Mozambique. The water is alkaline and very mineralized, so some hobbyists choose to add commercially available cichlid mineral salt to aquarium water to achieve more natural conditions.

    Lake Tanganyika Cichlids

    • Lake Tanganyika, just north of Malawi on Tanzania's western border, is also a rift lake. Tanganyika is the second-deepest lake in the world and has a very stable pH and incredibly oxygen-rich waters. Many of the popular shell-dwelling cichlids are from this lake, and the majority of the other cichlids here are relatively small compared with Malawi and Victoria species. The lake has only one outlet, so the water tends to be highly mineralized and somewhat salty in composition, with a sandy bottom. For this reason, Tanganyika cichlids in captivity are best housed with a sand-based substrate rather than rock, which can easily become lodged when the cichlids eat.

    Lake Victoria Cichlids

    • Lake Victoria is the second-largest freshwater lake in the world. In the 1950s, Nile perch were introduced to the lake as a food source for the three nations bordering the lake: Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya. These large predatory fish have eliminated nearly half of the native cichlid species. Still, some 250 species remain, and almost all are mouth-brooders, such as the Haplochromis and Lipochromis, which do best in small groups in aquaria, unlike many other species, which are highly territorial except in pairs. Lake Victoria cichlids also tolerate lower temperatures than other rift lake cichlids and a slightly greater degree of variability in the pH and carbonate hardness of their waters, both in nature and in captivity.