Tropheops microstoma "Masasa Reef"
Masasa Reef — mah-SAH-sah REEF (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 microstoma account →Specific to Masasa Reef
- 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 microstoma.
The Masasa Reef population
Tropheops microstoma "Masasa Reef" is the Masasa Reef population of Tropheops microstoma, 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 microstoma, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Masasa Reef fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Tropheops microstoma is a small, intensely sky-blue mbuna found only in Lake Malawi, where it grazes algae from the seam between rock and sand around a single stretch of shoreline on the Nankumba Peninsula. Its species name means "small mouth," a nod to the narrow, blunt jaws that mark it as one of the more specialized members of a notoriously hard-to-pin-down genus. Beautiful and territorial in equal measure, it is a fish that rewards space and punishes crowding.
Full Tropheops microstoma account →Sources
- malawi.si — Tropheops microstoma "Masasa Reef"
- FishBase — Tropheops microstoma
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes (Tropheops microstoma, species record)
- GBIF — Tropheops microstoma occurrence records
- Trewavas, E. 1935. A Synopsis of the Cichlid Fishes of Lake Nyasa. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 10 (original description)
- Chavula, G. et al. 2023. Lake Malawi/Niassa/Nyasa basin: Status, challenges, and research needs. J. Great Lakes Res. 49(6):102241