Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Tropheops sp. "Chilumba Type"

Tropheops sp. "Chilumba Type" "Chiwindi"

Chiwindi — chee-WEEN-dee (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. "Chilumba Type" account →

Specific to Chiwindi

  • 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. "Chilumba Type".

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 dimorphismYesColouration expected broadly comparable to Tropheops sp. "Chilumba"; a dedicated description for this specific population has not been published.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chiwindi population

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

Colour reference: living Chiwindi fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Tropheops sp. "Chilumba Type" is an undescribed rock-dwelling mbuna recorded from Chiwindi on the Mozambican shore of Lake Malawi. The trade name signals that this population displays a colour pattern of the same general "type" recognised in Tropheops sp. "Chilumba," a well-known form from the far northern lake, even though the Chiwindi locality lies well south of the Chilumba area itself — the two are treated as separate trade forms rather than a single population, pending formal comparison. Like all Tropheops it grazes aufwuchs from rock with 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. "Chilumba Type" account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Tropheops sp. "Chilumba Type" "Chiwindi"
  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)