Tropheops romandi "Mazinzi Reef"
Mazinzi Reef — mah-ZEEN-zee 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 romandi account →Specific to Mazinzi 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 romandi.
The Mazinzi Reef population
Tropheops romandi "Mazinzi Reef" is the Mazinzi Reef population of Tropheops romandi, 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 romandi, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Mazinzi Reef fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Tropheops romandi is a small, algae-grazing mbuna cichlid endemic to a short stretch of Lake Malawi's southern shore. It is a textbook case of how taxonomy shifts under hobbyists' feet: described in 1979 as a subspecies of Pseudotropheus tropheops, it was later raised to a full species in its own right. Males are slate blue-grey and territorial; females are a clean bright yellow and roam the rocks freely. Most of its tiny native range sits, conveniently, inside Lake Malawi National Park.
Full Tropheops romandi account →Sources
- malawi.si — Tropheops romandi "Mazinzi Reef"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Tropheops romandi (species record)
- FishBase — Tropheops romandi summary
- FishBase — Tropheops tropheops (congener feeding/behavior reference)
- Chavula et al. 2023 — Lake Malawi/Niassa/Nyasa basin: Status, challenges, and research needs (J. Great Lakes Research 49(6):102241)
- Chavula et al. 2023 — full article (ScienceDirect)