Cynotilapia afra edwardi "Nkhata Bay"
This fish comes from Nkhata Bay, Lake Malawi, Africa. Normal pH value for this lake is around 7.7-8.6 with a strong alkaline content. A lot of people call this fish by the name of Dwarf Zebra, which is incorrect. They are maternal mouthbrooders and have been known to form schools of up to 100 in number, and have been observed feeding on plankton. They have dog like teeth that are unicuspid, not like P. zebra which have bicupsid teeth in the front row and tricuspid teeth in the inner row. This fish is somewhat smaller than the zebra. When they spawn, they produce a smaller clutch size than most of the other Mbuna. Males are territorial and defend small caves as spawning sights. As for my dominant wild caught male, he dominates the whole tank (much smaller than his normal water volume).
I have a 30 gallon tank set up, sand on the bottom, and a Bio-wheel 330 filter on the back. It is decorated with many quartz type rocks that I pick up and cleaned from my yard. They are piled to form two different piles as territories. I have three males and two females Cynotilapia edwardi “Nkhata Bay”, and two males and one female Tropheops in this tank. They seam to do very well together, although they male edwardi do fight quit often.
After I saw one female carrying eggs, I mark my calendar and waited about 7 days. At which time I pull her out and put her in breeding net for a couple days. Then I stripped her of all the fry and returned her back into the tank. I put the fry into a 10-gallon tank to raise. I started to feed the fry with No B.S. fry food. The temperature was maintained around 80 degrees at all times. When the fry were between 2-1/2 to 3 weeks old, I started feeding crushed flake food. And I change the water at least once a week. At 45 days, I had ------ fry swimming. They were about 1/2" long and were eating like little pigs and doing really well.
By: Tony Jochman