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

Tropheops sp. "Chinyankwazi" "Chinyankwazi Island"

Chinyankwazi Island — cheen-yahn-KWAH-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. "Chinyankwazi" account →

Specific to Chinyankwazi 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. "Chinyankwazi".

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 dimorphismYesNot separately documented for this specific population; expected to follow the genus-typical progression from barred juveniles to a more solidly coloured adult male pattern.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chinyankwazi Island population

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

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

About the species

Tropheops sp. "Chinyankwazi" is an undescribed rock-dwelling mbuna named for Chinyankwazi Island, a small rocky reef in the southern part of Lake Malawi near the Nankumba Peninsula, close to the neighbouring Chinyamwezi Island that hosts the related trade form Tropheops sp. "Chinyamwezi." Ad Konings documented this reef as unusually deep, potentially a refuge for rock-dwelling cichlids during the lake's prehistoric low-water periods. 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. "Chinyankwazi" account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Tropheops sp. "Chinyankwazi" "Chinyankwazi 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)