Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Tropheops sp. "Black Hara"

Tropheops sp. "Black Hara" "Gallireya Reef"

Gallireya Reef — gah-lee-REH-yah 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 sp. "Black Hara" account →

Specific to Gallireya 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 sp. "Black Hara".

CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size4.5 in11 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Hardness (GH)very hardup to 446 ppm
Depth10–66 ft3–20 m
DietAlgae grazer, scraping aufwuchs from rock surfaces using specialised comb-like teeth
Breedingmaternal mouthbroodernot documented for this form; expected modest, a few dozen eggs, by analogy with similarly sized Tropheops
Sexual dimorphismYesMature males show an overall dark, near-black body colouration; female colouration not separately documented for this population.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Gallireya Reef population

Tropheops sp. "Black Hara" "Gallireya Reef" is the Gallireya Reef population of Tropheops sp. "Black Hara", a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the far northern part of the lake. It is the same species as Tropheops sp. "Black Hara", distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Gallireya Reef fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Tropheops sp. "Black Hara" is an undescribed rock-dwelling mbuna recorded from Gallireya Reef on the far northern shore of Lake Malawi. The trade name pairs a colour description — a dark, near-black overall body tone in mature males — with "Hara," a locality qualifier used in the hobby literature to distinguish this population from other dark-coloured Tropheops trade forms found elsewhere in the lake. Like all Tropheops it grazes aufwuchs from rock using specialised comb-like teeth. It has never been formally described, so it carries no authority, no publication year, no FishBase entry, and no IUCN assessment.

Full Tropheops sp. "Black Hara" account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Tropheops sp. "Black Hara" "Gallireya Reef"
  2. malawi.si — Konings-based Lake Malawi cichlid species and locality database (Tropheops)
  3. Cichlid Room Companion — Malawi cichlid genus and undescribed-form references (Ad Konings, curator)
  4. Konings, A. — Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat (Cichlid Press; foremost Malawi field authority)