Got Some Questions

[erk628]

Hello I'm not new to fishkeeping and not new to the forum as you can see but I am new to this section. I've decided I want an old world cichlid tank. I have a 150 gallon tank that I will be using for this setup I'll have many questions as I plain and set this tank up but I'd like to start off with one question. What is the difference between African and Mumba cichlids or is there a difference. Thanks in advance to those who reply.

 

[Realtree]

Hi
I'm no expert but a very obsessed malawi mbuna enthusiast. I have had a quick look through my research material and whenever the word mumba occurs it is automatically converted to mbuna within the reference. So i will stick my neck out and say that it may have the same meaning (mbuna literally means rock dweller)- although I cannot confirm this.
Hope that helps
Mark

 

[dthoffsett]

I'm also thinking you mean Mbuna. There is no difference between mbuna and African cichlids, mbuna is just a certain group of africans. To expain further, there are three major lakes in east Africa that have cichlids, Lake Malawi, Lake Tanganikya and Lake Victoria.

Lake Malawi is the most popular and it's cichlids while all technically Haplochromines are broken down into three groups; Mbuna: the rock-dwelling species, Peacocks: all of the Aulonocara species named for their brightly colored males, and Haps: all of the left over species.

Lake Tanganikya is broken down into several groups as well: shelldwellers (pretty self-explanatory), fronts (frontosa) and several others, my apologies but I'm not very versed in Lake Tangs. And to my knowledge Lake Victoria doesn't have any sub-groups.