Astatotilapia calliptera can be found in entire Lake Malawi and it`s living there between the vegetation in shallow bays and in the shallow parts of the intermediate zones from rocks to sand. They can also be found in the rivers and streams which end in the lake or evolve out of it. They also keep up many times under floating "vegetation fields" that sometimes float from the rivers into the lake. This variety can be found near Thumbi East Island.

At the end of the year 2008 I bought eight of these fish, offspring of the variety from Thumbi East Island. At this moment they are very young and it appears there are two males in this group, the rest are probably females. The males are colouring slowly so I"m not quite sure about the rest but I assume there are no more men in this group.
At this moment (August 2009) the males are about 6-7 cm and the females about 5 tot 7 cm (they are growing unequally, the one grows faster than the other). I temporarily keep them in a tank in our breeding room where they can grow up, until they are large enough to put them in my aquarium in our livingroom.

Mutually they are a little intolerant (up till now), against the other inhabitants more tolerant.
In this aquarium they are comfortable with any food. They take everything they get offered, like mysis, artemia, cyclops and shrimp-peas mix. Food rich of algae like spirulina pellets or flakes is very important to them so this must not be missing on their menu.

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