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there is links to description and pictures of our Malawi Cichlids. |
Lake Malawi lays in the East African Rift Valley, which is part of the Great Rift Valley system, the world's most spectacular geological depression. Tremendous volcanic activity and shifting of the earth's surface resulted in the formation of the African rift valleys. It stretches from the Nil-valley true the eastern Africa and down to Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi. | ||||
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Lake Malawi lies between the countries of Malawi on the west and Tanzania and Mozambique on the east. The Lake covers about 31,000 km2 (Denmark covers 44.000 sq km); it is linked through the Shire River to the Zambezi and the sea.
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 These Rift lakes are often described as inland seas, due in part to their magnitude and also because the water is very hard and salty. Hard water contains a great quantity of minerals. The water pH varies from 7.7-8.5, and the surface temperature averages 23-28 C. Most water saturation occurs at the surface here, as in Tanganyika. Deeper water levels in the lake are devoid of oxygen, thus fish life is restricted to the aqua zone near the surface.
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The great lakes of Africa are similar to islands in their isolation from one another. Each lake has a variety of ecological zones from swamps to rocky shores. Fish have evolved to fit each of these ecological niches and as a result Lake Malawi has more species of fish than any other lake in the world, most of them found nowhere else. World Wildlife Fund researchers have identified over 500 species to date that are not found anywhere else in the world.
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