Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Tropheops sp. "Macrophthalmus Chitimba Blue"

Tropheops sp. "Macrophthalmus Chitimba Blue" "Chitimba Bay (Deep)"

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. "Macrophthalmus Chitimba Blue" account →

Specific to Chitimba Bay (Deep)

  • 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. "Macrophthalmus Chitimba Blue".

CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size4.5 in12 cm total length
Temperature73–82 °F23–28 °C
pH7.7–8.8alkaline
Hardness (GH)very hardup to 446 ppm
Depth33–131 ft10–40 m
DietAlgae grazer (aufwuchs), rasping the algal mat from rock; likely a thinner deep-water mat than shallow-dwelling Tropheops, consistent with the group's big-eyed, low-light adaptation
Breedingmaternal mouthbroodernot documented for this form; genus-typical, on the order of a few dozen eggs
Sexual dimorphismYesDominant males reported blue, in line with the described Tropheops macrophthalmus (metallic blue to lavender males, yellow-to-ochre females); not independently confirmed for this population.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chitimba Bay (Deep) population

Tropheops sp. "Macrophthalmus Chitimba Blue" "Chitimba Bay (Deep)" is the Chitimba Bay (Deep) population of Tropheops sp. "Macrophthalmus Chitimba Blue", a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the northern part of the lake. It is the same species as Tropheops sp. "Macrophthalmus Chitimba Blue", distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Chitimba Bay (Deep) fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Tropheops sp. "Macrophthalmus Chitimba Blue" is an undescribed mbuna from Chitimba Bay and nearby Gallireya Reef, on Lake Malawi's far northern Malawian shore. Its name places it in the "macrophthalmus" group — big-eyed Tropheops associated with deeper, dimmer-lit rocky habitat, a group that includes the formally described Tropheops macrophthalmus — and marks its dominant males as blue. It has no formal description of its own, and no authority, IUCN status, or FishBase entry should be attached to it.

Full Tropheops sp. "Macrophthalmus Chitimba Blue" account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Tropheops sp. "Macrophthalmus Chitimba Blue" "Chitimba Bay (Deep)"
  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 "Macrophthalmus Chitimba Blue" form