Copadichromis borleyi "Kande Island"
Kande Island — KAHN-deh EYE-land (approx.)
The fish
How this cichlid is built, and everything about how it lives, eats and breeds, is shared with the species — this page doesn't repeat it.
Read the full Copadichromis borleyi account →Specific to Kande Island
- Collection locality & coordinates
- Local coloration — best judged from the living-fish photo
- Kept as a single-provenance line, never crossed with other collection points
Care facts below are the species' — shared with Copadichromis borleyi.
The Kande Island population
Copadichromis borleyi is one of Lake Malawi's most recognisable open-water cichlids — a specialist zooplanktivore that cruises the mid-water column above rocky reefs in large, mixed-sex shoals, and whose dominant males blaze with a scarlet-orange body and a metallic blue head that earned the species its trade name, the Red Empress. The Kande Island locality form originates from a small, rocky island situated at roughly 11°44'S on the western Malawian shore in what is now the southern part of Nkhata Bay District; the island's steeply shelving reefs are famous among divers and snorkellers as one of the most reliable sites in the entire lake to encounter dense aggregations of schooling cichlids, including the large borleyi shoals that patrol the reef edges. Because coloration in Copadichromis borleyi varies measurably among geographically isolated populations, the aquarium hobby tracks and maintains locality-labelled lines, and the Kande Island form — prized for its particularly saturated orange-red flanks — has become one of the most widely sought of these geographic variants.
Colour reference: living Kande Island fish at seriouslyfish.com →
About the species
Copadichromis borleyi is a zooplankton-feeding cichlid endemic to Lake Malawi and one of the most recognizable members of the lake's "utaka" guild — the open-water haplochromines that hover in shoals above the rocks and pick drifting copepods out of the current. Sold across the hobby as the "red fin" or "Kadango" hap, it pairs a vivid blue-faced, red- or yellow-flanked male with a flexible, suction-style feeding habit that ties it tightly to the lake's plankton. It is common, widespread, and listed as Least Concern, even as the basin it depends on comes under growing strain.
Full Copadichromis borleyi account →Sources
- Iles, T.D. (1960). A group of zooplankton feeders (Haplochromis) in Lake Nyasa. Annals and Magazine of Natural History (13)3: 257–280
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Copadichromis borleyi
- FishBase — Copadichromis borleyi
- Konings, A. (2016). Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat, 5th ed. Cichlid Press
- IUCN Red List — Copadichromis borleyi (Least Concern, 2018)
- Seriously Fish — Copadichromis borleyi
- Cichlid Room Companion — Copadichromis borleyi
- Chavula, G. et al. (2023). Threats to Lake Malawi biodiversity. Fisheries Research