Melanochromis maingano

Also known as, Melanochromis cyaneorhabdos are great fish to keep, they are colourful, active and easy to look after.

They are found native endemic to Lake Malawi at Likoma Island.  Pictured below is Maingano Island off the coastline of Likoma Island.  Apparently they are found at a depth of 5-10m in a area with small to medium rocks on the lake floor. (Reference here).

 

Community

Their only problem is they tend to be aggresive towards other fish, especially those that have similar markings or horizontal banding.  (Vertical banding they seem pretty happy about).

Males tend to get quite territorial and guard, "their spot".  My dominant male hides in a castle and woe betide anything entering it.  Others will be shown the door pronto, he won't even tolerate snails in there, picking them up and ejecting them out the door. Try and ensure that for each male in the tank, it has a place it can call home.  The females should also have a place they can retire to when they are holding eggs that is quiet.  (This quickly becomes impractical in a small tank). That said, a lot of the time they are happy to be in a group, larger caves etc are great for this.  The dominant male will chase the other males around sometimes though.  Having seperate hidey holes for a lot of fish is an ideal only and not required. I currently have eight in my main tank, which is a tiny ninety litre one.  (Aqua One AR-620). I have had as many as twenty three  in this tank co-existing without major problems except work involved keeping the water clean.  They were a bit stressed, but seemed OK.

Water

The water is rainwater, to which I have added 80% strength Aquasonic Rift Lake Water Conditioner.

In the past I have used tapwater, which they don't enjoy as much.  Also I have used the output water from a refrigerated airconditioner, which is basically just distilled water.

They seem happiest with the rainwater and conditioner mentioned above.

Temperature

They seem to tolerate quite a wide range of temperature, it's been around 22 degrees all the way up to 28-30 degrees Celcius without problems.  25 seems to be the optimum temperature.

Feeding

They are fed on a combination of:
TetraCichlid Mini Granules
TetraColor Tropical Granules
TetraCichlid Cichlid Flakes

(Normally around 50% flake to granules.)

I used to just feed them TetraCichlid Mini Granules, however as the fish got larger this was getting impractical, the TetraColor Tropical Granules are a little larger and seem to be popular with them.

They generally grab the food as it falls to the bottom, they are not good surface feeders, preferring to eat the food as it falls to the bottom, or (less popular) from the bottom of the tank.

They will generally ignore floating food unless it's been just added when a few will break the surface grabbing it, then  they'll revert to grabbing food that's falling.  (As per above, they are apparently normally found at a depth of 5 to 10 metres which probably explains why they pretty much ignore surface food).

Floating sticks or pellets are therefore useless.  (Though my snails like them).

Habitat

Substrate is crushed coral.  Maingano like to dig, so avoid larger gravel.  I have not tried other materials.

They can be difficult with ornaments and larger rocks that are placed only on the substrate.  The fish will busily undermine all these till they are on the bottom of the tank usually.  Had a few minor avalanches with stacked rocks due to this.  They don't bother plants too much.

Fry like to hide in floating weed or other fine leaved plants whilst young to avoid getting eaten.

Be careful with decorative items that have small holes in them.  I have a submarine in the tank which is hollow.  A few times I have inadvertantly trapped fry/young maingano in it whilst reseating it in the substrate after not realising they have burrowed a tunnel into it.

Maingano love caves and hiding.  When you first introduce them to a tank, they can be quite shy, but as they grow they will tend to hide less.  They are usually found near the bottom or mid level of the tank.  At feeding time they can break the surface of the water.

Breeding

I seem to have no problem with breeding them, the fish will dig pits, swim in circles chasing each others tales when mating and males will "shimmy" when the time is right.

Females will hold eggs in their mouths until the young fry hatch.  They can hold an amazing number of young for such small fish.  Females do tend to get a little skinny when holding for long periods, however I have yet to have any starve.

For a short while after birth I have observed the female "guarding" the fry.  Unsure if she is letting them re-enter her mouth or if she's just sitting there with them.  After a while the fry will disperse to tiny holes/cracks/leafy weed.

Most of the young fry will get eaten unless seperated from the adults.  I've also lost quite a few to the powerhead/filter.  (Females seem to consider the corner of the tank that has the power head intake a nice quiet spot for spitting the fry out).  I've managed to save some from the filter box, but usually they are dead, either from cold or going through the pump.