Tropheops modestus "Nakantenga Island"
Nakantenga Island — nah-kahn-TEHN-gah EYE-land (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 modestus account →Specific to Nakantenga Island
- 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 modestus.
The Nakantenga Island population
Tropheops modestus "Nakantenga Island" is the Nakantenga Island population of Tropheops modestus, 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 modestus, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Nakantenga Island fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Tropheops modestus is a rock-dwelling mbuna cichlid endemic to Lake Malawi, one of the many closely related Tropheops "location forms" that graze the algal turf coating the lake's wave-washed boulder shores. Its species name — Latin for restrained or unassuming — suits a fish whose coloration is comparatively muted next to some of its more vividly barred congeners. Known from a small cluster of rocky sites in the lake's southwestern arm, it carries the genus's diagnostic steep-fronted head and small, downturned mouth, tools built for wrenching algae loose from stone.
Full Tropheops modestus account →