Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Tropheops sp. "Chinyamwezi"

Tropheops sp. "Chinyamwezi" "Chinyamwezi Island"

Chinyamwezi Island — cheen-yahm-WEH-zee 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 sp. "Chinyamwezi" account →

Specific to Chinyamwezi 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 sp. "Chinyamwezi".

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
Depth10–79 ft3–24 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 dimorphismYesAn orange-blotch (OB) colour morph is documented in the local population (Konings, Cichlids Yearbook vol. 2); standard male nuptial colouration not separately published.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chinyamwezi Island population

Tropheops sp. "Chinyamwezi" "Chinyamwezi Island" is the Chinyamwezi Island population of Tropheops sp. "Chinyamwezi", 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 sp. "Chinyamwezi", distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Chinyamwezi Island fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Tropheops sp. "Chinyamwezi" is an undescribed rock-dwelling mbuna named for Chinyamwezi Island, a small rocky outcrop in the southern part of Lake Malawi near the Nankumba Peninsula. Konings' field notes from the reef record an orange-blotch (OB) colour morph within the local Tropheops population there, alongside the standard mouthbrooding spawning sequence typical of the genus. Like all Tropheops it is an algae grazer, scraping 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. "Chinyamwezi" account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Tropheops sp. "Chinyamwezi" "Chinyamwezi Island"
  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. (ed.) — Cichlids Yearbook, Volume 1 (Cichlid Press)
  5. Konings, A. (ed.) — Cichlids Yearbook, Volume 2 (Cichlid Press)