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

Tropheops sp. "Deep" "Nkhata Bay"

Tropheops sp. "Deep" (Lions Cove, 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".

CARESNOT LISTED
Genus type speciesTropheops tropheopsdescribed as Pseudotropheus tropheops Regan 1922
Scientific size4.5 in11 cm total length
Temperature73–81 °F23–27 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Hardness (GH)up to 446 ppm
Habitat watermoderately soft, alkaline, well-buffered79 ppmLake Malawi
Depth49–131 ft15–40 m
DietAlgae grazer (aufwuchs); presumed to graze a thinner deep-water algal mat than shallow Tropheops, possibly supplemented opportunistically
Breedingmaternal mouthbroodernot documented for this form; genus-typical, on the order of a few dozen eggs
Sexual dimorphismYesNot confirmed for this form; deep-water mbuna elsewhere in the lake typically show more muted coloration than shallow-water relatives.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

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 →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Tropheops sp. "Deep" "Nkhata Bay"
  2. Cichlid Room Companion — genus Tropheops
  3. Konings, A. — Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat (Cichlid Press)
  4. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes (Fricke, Eschmeyer & Van der Laan, eds., CAS) — searched: no valid name for the undescribed "Deep" form
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