Tropheops sp. "Deep" "Nkhata Bay"
Nkhata Bay — n-KAH-tah BAY (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. "Deep" account →Specific to Nkhata Bay
- 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. "Deep".
The Nkhata Bay population
Tropheops sp. "Deep" "Nkhata Bay" is the Nkhata Bay population of Tropheops sp. "Deep", a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the central part of the lake. It is the same species as Tropheops sp. "Deep", distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Nkhata Bay fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Tropheops sp. "Deep" is an undescribed mbuna documented at Lions Cove and Nkhata Bay on Lake Malawi's north-central shore. Its trade name follows a convention repeated across several Malawi mbuna genera for populations collected well below the shallow, wave-washed zone where most rock-dwelling cichlids concentrate — a deeper ecotype of a genus that is normally a creature of the sunlit upper few metres. It has never been formally described, and no authority, IUCN status, or FishBase entry should be attached to it.
Full Tropheops sp. "Deep" account →