Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Tramitichromis intermedius

Tramitichromis intermedius "Chiofu"

Chiofu — chee-OH-foo (approx.)

The fish

How this cichlid is built, and everything about how it lives, eats and breeds, is shared with the species — this page doesn't repeat it.

Read the full Tramitichromis intermedius account →

Specific to Chiofu

  • Collection locality & coordinates
  • Local coloration — best judged from the living-fish photo
  • Kept as a single-provenance line, never crossed with other collection points

Care facts below are the species' — shared with Tramitichromis intermedius.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size5.5 in14 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth0–33 ft0–10 m
DietSand-sifting benthic invertivore (insect larvae and other soft invertebrates)
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder (polygynous, lek-spawning; males build and defend sand pits as spawning territories)not formally published; estimated a few dozen to ~80 eggs based on comparable sand-dwelling haplochromines [FLAGGED — unpublished]
Sexual dimorphismYesBreeding males develop a blue-grey body with dark scale edges and hold nuptial colour during the spawning season; females and non-breeding males are cryptically silvery and nearly identical to other sand-dwelling haplochromine females.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chiofu population

Tramitichromis intermedius "Chiofu" is the Chiofu population of Tramitichromis intermedius, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the south-central part of the lake. It is the same species as Tramitichromis intermedius, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Chiofu fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Tramitichromis intermedius is a quietly compelling haplochromine endemic to Lake Malawi, where it hugs the sediment-covered shallows of sheltered bays and quietly hoovers up the invertebrates buried beneath the sand. It belongs to a small, morphologically idiosyncratic genus whose members share an unusually angled lower pharyngeal bone — a dental geometry suited to crushing soft-bodied prey extracted from the upper few centimetres of lake-floor sediment. Where the peacocks of the genus Aulonocara use enlarged sensory pores to locate their prey, Tramitichromis intermedius tilts its snout into the substrate and sifts: a fish built for industrious, methodical foraging rather than sensory hovering. Despite living lake-wide, it has attracted less scientific attention than almost any other Malawi haplochromine of comparable size, and until the mid-1990s no one had ever recorded the living colours of an adult male.

Full Tramitichromis intermedius account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Tramitichromis intermedius "Chiofu"
  2. FishBase — Tramitichromis intermedius (Trewavas, 1935)
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Tramitichromis intermedius (species record; lectotype BMNH 1935.6.14.2081)
  4. The ETYFish Project — Cichlidae (Pseudocrenilabrinae p–y): Tramitichromis & T. intermedius etymology
  5. MalawiCichlids.com — Tramitichromis intermedius (M.K. Oliver; Konings 1995 field notes, taxonomy discussion)
  6. Ripley, J.L. & Lobel, P.S. — Reproductive behavior of the Lake Malawi cichlid fish, Tramitichromis intermedius (Environ. Biol. Fishes 73: 171–180, 2005)