Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Tropheops sp. "Maleri Blue"

Tropheops sp. "Maleri Blue" "Nakantenga Island"Maleri blue tropheops

Tropheops sp. "Maleri Blue" (Nakantenga Island)

Nakantenga Island — nah-kahn-TEHN-gah 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. "Maleri Blue" account →

Specific to Nakantenga 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. "Maleri Blue".

CARESNOT LISTED
Genus type speciesTropheops tropheopsdescribed as Pseudotropheus tropheops Regan 1922
Scientific size4 in10.5 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Hardness (GH)up to 446 ppm
Habitat watermoderately soft, alkaline, well-buffered79 ppmLake Malawi
Depth10–49 ft3–15 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 dimorphismYesTrade name indicates a deep blue body colour in dominant males; full independently published colour description not available for this form.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Nakantenga Island population

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

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

About the species

Tropheops sp. "Maleri Blue" is an undescribed mbuna recorded from Nakantenga Island, one of the Maleri Islands in south-central Lake Malawi within Lake Malawi National Park. The trade name describes the deep blue coloration reported in dominant males against the island group where the form was collected, one of several "Maleri"-tagged colour lines that hobbyists distinguish from similarly named forms elsewhere in the lake. Like other locality-based Tropheops trade names, it has never received a formal taxonomic description. It has no authority, no publication year, no FishBase number, and no IUCN assessment.

Full Tropheops sp. "Maleri Blue" account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Tropheops sp. "Maleri Blue" "Nakantenga Island"
  2. malawi.si — Konings-based Lake Malawi cichlid species and locality database
  3. Cichlid Room Companion — Malawi cichlid genus and undescribed-form references (Ad Konings, curator)
  4. Konings, A. — Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat (Cichlid Press)
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