Picked up some Melanochromis cyaneorhabdos "Maingano"

[sailor]

I picked up a few of these guys yesterday. They look a lot like johanni but are not as aggressive. The females stay the same colour as the male but not quite as intense. Here is a link to them until I can get a few pics once they settle down. They are currently all digging caves under the lava rock so they are playing shy.

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[kaybee]

Cool!
How many did you get and what other species (if any) are they in with?

[toddnbecka]

Interesting, that must be the species that has outlived the mixture of peacocks, mbuna, and Hap's in the lfs display tank for years. It was originally stocked with a wide variety of species, but over time only a few remain. The females are the same color as the males, (there are no orange fish remaining in the tank, never were any that size/shape) and there are multiple generations of fry as well. From what I've seen of them they seem to be comparable to yellow Lab's regarding aggression level.

[Lady Hobbs]

Very nice and even better to have less aggressive. How are you other fish now? Are they re-homed?

[sailor]

There is just the five of them in a tank simply aquascaped with lots of lava rock and sand.

My Kitumbas are a hit at work. There are 3 people trying to out bid each other lol. I told them the first 1 who has the cash and the proper size tank can take em home.

[Collin1104]

my lfs sold me one as a johanni, he might be a johanni but its a lot nicer than my other male johanni and its much darker in color... oh well, i like him either way lol

that sounds like a sweet tank for them btw

[Dixie]

Cool beans Sailor,
I have 4 of them that are adults. Three were in my very first fish purchase about a year ago. I really like them alot. Eventually I saw another one at the LFS in a mixed tank and snagged it up too. I've heard people say that they are very aggressive because they are Melanochromis but I haven't had any aggression problems with mine. I have a hard time telling the males from females though. I know females are suppose to be lighter mainly on their underneath side but I had a holding female that was just as dark as the male.
I have 3 babies from them that I rescued out of my 55g. tank and now have in a 10g. and I have some more in the 55g. tank again, if they haven't got eaten. I have a black rock pile in the 55g. that they hide in. I'm going to try to get them out soon and put them in a little 1.5g. tank like I did the other fry until they get a bit of size and color to them.
Todd&Becka, I know the LFS you mean that has them. They are in the big display tank with the Leporinus and yellow labs. For some reason they look huge in that tank. I guess they ARE old and big though. Did you notice they now have a big female auratus in that tank too? I don't know if it's been there the whole time because I only noticed it the last time I was in there. It was holding and I really wanted to buy it for my male auratus but hubby wouldn't let me. I don't even know if the fish in that tank are for sale.

Congrats on your new fish Sailor. I'm sure you're gonna love them & the fry are sooooo darn cute. I wish I had some yellow lab fry to go with them. They would look so cute together.

Oh, two more things...as if I haven't run off at the fingers enough already...the fish in my avitar is a maingano (Melanochromis cyaneorhabdos)& when they were sold to me, they were sold as Electric Blue Johanni. I've since heard that that is a common nicname for them which I think is stupid because the johanni is a completely different species.