Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Tropheops microstoma

Tropheops microstoma "Otter Point"

Tropheops microstoma (Masasa Reef, Otter Island, Otter Point)

Otter Point — OT-ter POYNT (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 Otter Point

  • 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.

IUCNNEAR THREATENED · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Genus type speciesTropheops tropheopsdescribed as Pseudotropheus tropheops Regan 1922
Scientific size4 in9.8 cm standard length
Temperature75–79 °F24–26 °C
pH7.7–8.8alkaline
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 mouthbrooder~10-40 eggs (genus-typical)
Sexual dimorphismYesDominant males vivid sky-blue with broad blue-black bars, yellow fin margins and anal-fin egg-spots; females and subordinate males duller blue-grey to silvery brown, smaller.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Otter Point population

Tropheops microstoma "Otter Point" is the Otter Point 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 Otter Point 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

  1. malawi.si — Tropheops microstoma "Otter Point"
  2. FishBase — Tropheops microstoma
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes (Tropheops microstoma, species record)
  4. GBIF — Tropheops microstoma occurrence records
  5. Trewavas, E. 1935. A Synopsis of the Cichlid Fishes of Lake Nyasa. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 10 (original description)
  6. Chavula, G. et al. 2023. Lake Malawi/Niassa/Nyasa basin: Status, challenges, and research needs. J. Great Lakes Res. 49(6):102241
  7. IUCN Red List — Tropheops microstoma "Otter Point"
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