# Difference between Maingono's and Johannii's??



## pmac (Dec 1, 2008)

Hi, a few days ago I went out and bought what I thought were two Melanochromis johanniis, but after seeing some pictures of other peoples fish, I'm confused. How am I to tell if they are johanniis or mainganos? From the pictures I've seen on the internet, both species look exactly the same... I like to know exactly what species I have in my tank, and now this is throwing me off a bit. When I saw them in the LFS, I asked the owner what type of fish they were, and he said that he's "pretty sure they're johannii's", and I believed him, because they looked like what I thought johannii's to look like. That was until I heard about maingano's.

Does anyone on here know how to tell the difference between the two?

Thanks in advance,

Patrick


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## kbuntu (Aug 25, 2008)

M. johannii males tend to be almost black rather than blue. Melanochromis cyaneorhabdos tends to have more gill rakers on the first epibranchial (9-11) than does M. johannii (8-9; Eccles, 1973).

In addition M. johannii females are yellow-orange.


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

There really isn't any difference between adult males of the two.. except for gill raker count, which you aren't going to know anyway. How big are these fish?

M. johanni are born yellowish orange, both the males and females. Upon maturity the males turn blue, females stay yellowish orange.

M. cyaneorhabdos are born blue, both males and females.


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## pmac (Dec 1, 2008)

Their both around 2 inches, maybe a little more than that. Still Juv's though


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## cichlidaholic (Dec 7, 2005)

To confuse matters more, M. cyaneorhabdos are commonly called "electric blue johanni" in many LFS...That doesn't help one bit.


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## pmac (Dec 1, 2008)

Yeah, I know what you mean.. I'm going to assume that they're cyanerohabdos due to the fact that they are quite blue already and still juv's, and after a bit of research on the internet it seems that a lot of sources say the cyanerohados are quite a bit slimmer than the johannis. And I noticed that my fish seem quite slim compared to my other mbuna


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## cichlidaholic (Dec 7, 2005)

Yes, the Melanochromis are more "torpedo" shaped than zebra types and other mbuna.

Don't assume they are cyaneorhabdos as far as breeding purposes go - you really need to _know_ what you've got if you plan to distribute fry. Unfortunately, if you walk out of the LFS not knowing what they are, it's very difficult to figure it out later on.


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## pmac (Dec 1, 2008)

Don't worry, I don't plan on doing any breeding


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