Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Tropheops kumwera

Tropheops kumwera "Chemwezi Rocks"

Tropheops kumwera (Boadzulu Island, Chemwezi Rocks, Domwe Island, Harbour Island, Kanchedza Island, Makokola Reef, Masasa Reef, Mazinzi Reef, Tsano Rock)

Chemwezi Rocks — chehm-WEH-zee ROKS (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 Tropheops kumwera account →

Specific to Chemwezi Rocks

  • 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 Tropheops kumwera.

IUCNNEAR THREATENED · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Genus type speciesTropheops tropheopsdescribed as Pseudotropheus tropheops Regan 1922
Scientific size3 in7.1 cm standard length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.8–8.6alkaline
Hardness (GH)up to 179 ppm
Habitat watermoderately soft, alkaline, well-buffered79 ppmLake Malawi
Depth10–131 ft3–40 m
DietGrazes filamentous aufwuchs from rock
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooderGenus-typical: a modest brood of a few dozen large eggs (undocumented for this species)
Sexual dimorphismYesTerritorial males turn clean blue over flank and dorsal fin with a black head and yellow anal egg-spots; females and non-breeding fish stay muted purple to dark blue
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chemwezi Rocks population

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

Colour reference: living Chemwezi Rocks fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Tropheops kumwera is a small, rock-grazing mbuna cichlid endemic to the southeastern arm of Lake Malawi, where territorial males flush an electric blue over the rubble fields they patrol. Formally described only in 2016, it spent decades known to aquarists and field surveyors as Tropheops sp. "elongatus boadzulu." Its name is the Chichewa word for "south," a nod to a range that begins and ends within a single stretch of Malawian shoreline.

Full Tropheops kumwera account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Tropheops kumwera "Chemwezi Rocks"
  2. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Tropheops kumwera
  3. FishBase: Tropheops kumwera Li, Konings & Stauffer, 2016
  4. GBIF: Tropheops kumwera occurrence search
  5. Li, Konings & Stauffer (2016), A revision of the Pseudotropheus elongatus species group, Zootaxa 4168(2):353-381 (PDF)
  6. Li et al. (2016), Zootaxa revision (PubMed record)
  7. IUCN Red List — Tropheops kumwera "Chemwezi Rocks"
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