Sulphur Head Cichlid / Aulonocara maylandi 2.5" (Pair)

A blue fish that looks dipped in sulphur. A mature male is a deep, even blue from snout to tail, with a broad blaze of pale yellow running across the forehead and along the top of the dorsal fin as if the fish had been lowered head-first into a pot of paint. It is one of the simplest colour schemes among the peacocks and one of the most striking, because nothing on the fish competes with that contrast.

Like every Aulonocara, it is a hunter of the sand rather than a scraper of rock. In the lake it hovers just above the bottom, listening for invertebrates moving in the sediment through enlarged sensory pores on the head, then dives in and sifts. In the aquarium that translates into a fish that is calmer than the mbuna it is often wrongly mixed with, that spends its time in the lower half of the tank over open sand, and that colours up best in a group of its own kind with a couple of other peaceful peacocks for company.

Care Snapshot

Setting Up For It

• Open sand is the main event. Fine, rounded sand across most of the floor gives the fish somewhere to hunt and sift. Coarse sharp gravel stops the natural feeding behaviour and dulls the fish.
• Rock around the edges, not everywhere. A few stacked caves along the back and sides give females and subordinate males a retreat, while leaving the open floor that peacocks actually use. Set the bottom stones on the base glass so digging cannot topple them.
• Length over height. Males stake out a patch of floor and display across it. A 120 cm tank holds one male comfortably; a 150 cm tank or longer lets you keep two or three different peacock males without constant squabbling.
• Hard, alkaline, stable water. pH 7.6–8.6 and plenty of carbonate hardness. Crushed coral or aragonite in the filter or mixed into the sand holds the pH steady between water changes.
• Strong biological filtration. Malawi tanks are stocked more heavily than community tanks. Run a canister or sump rated at least three to four times the tank volume per hour, and change 30–40% of the water weekly.
• Moderate lighting shows the blue. Very bright, cool-white light flattens the colour. A slightly warmer or blue-enhanced light over pale sand brings out both the blue body and the yellow blaze.

Tank Mates

Keep only one male of each peacock species, and avoid mixing females of several Aulonocara species with only one male — the females look very alike and cross-breeding is common.

Feeding — Small, Sinking, Meaty — But Not Rich

Peacocks eat small invertebrates in the wild, so they need more protein than the algae-grazing mbuna. That does not mean beef heart or fatty foods: Malawi cichlids of every type are prone to bloat when fed heavy, high-fat diets, and peacocks are no exception.

Feed a quality sinking cichlid pellet once or twice a day, only what is cleared in a minute or two. From the AQA range, a small sinking cichlid pellet makes a good daily staple, with frozen foods two or three times a week and one fasting day each week to keep the gut clean.

Foods it takes well: frozen mysis, brine shrimp, krill, cyclops and daphnia, plus a spirulina-containing pellet for balance. Skip bloodworm as a staple and avoid live tubifex.

Sexing & Breeding

Males develop the full blue body and yellow head blaze, with egg spots on the anal fin and longer, more pointed fins. Females stay grey-brown with faint barring. Juveniles all start out grey-brown, so young fish are very hard to sex; males begin to colour from around 6–8 cm, and the full colour can take a year or more.

A maternal mouthbrooder. The male cleans a spot in the sand or in a cave mouth and displays to females; after spawning, the female carries the eggs and then the fry in her mouth for around three to four weeks, eating little during that time. Moving a holding female to a quiet tank a few days before release gives the best survival. Fry take crushed flake and baby brine shrimp straight away.

Keeping It In Indian Conditions

• Hard borewell water is an advantage here. Most of Bengaluru's borewell water and many Indian municipal supplies are already hard and alkaline — close to what this fish wants. Test pH and hardness, but you will rarely need to do more than add some crushed coral for buffering.
• Watch the summer ceiling. Peacocks are comfortable up to around 28 °C. In April and May, tanks can climb past 30 °C; run a fan across the surface, add an air stone and feed less on the hottest days.
• Power cuts hit stocked Malawi tanks hard. A heavily stocked cichlid tank uses oxygen quickly once the filter stops. A battery-backed air pump or an inverter line for the filter is cheap insurance.
• Winter heating is a light job. In the south a heater set to 25–26 °C is mostly a safety net for cold nights; in the north and in hill stations it is essential from November to February.