The colorful mouthbrooders from Lake Malawi - the so called mbuna - belong to the most popular aquarium fish over decades already. They are also called the "coralfish of freshwater", for - like their salty relatives - they unite splendid colours and a rather quarrelsome temper. The latter is due to the very restricted food in the wild - both in the coral reef and in Lake Malawi. The sparse food is defended heavily, even when there is no need for this behaviour anymore in the aquarium.

 

The wasp mouthbrooder (Pseudotropheus crabro) has found a very special resource of food. It lives in caves and cleans the large bagrid catfish from parasites. These bagrids are called Kampango all over the lake, the scientific name is Bagrus meridionalis. The large predators recognize the cleaner fish even in the darkness of the cave due to their contrasting yellow-black coloration. Dominant males of P. crabro become very dark, almost black. This says other males to stay away from him and gives a hearty welcome to all females.

 

For our customers: the fish has code 568252 on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade.

 

Lexicon: Pseudotropheus: means "false Tropheus"; Tropheus is another genus of cichlid. crabro: means "wasp", according o the contrasting yellow-black coloration.

 

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer