Tropheops sp. "Mauve Yellow" "Chiloelo"

Chiloelochee-loh-EH-loh (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. "Mauve Yellow" account →

Specific to Chiloelo

  • 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. "Mauve Yellow".

CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size4 in10 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Hardness (GH)very hardup to 446 ppm
Depth10–66 ft3–20 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 mauve body tone with yellow markings in breeding males; independent published colour description is not available beyond this.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chiloelo population

Tropheops sp. "Mauve Yellow" "Chiloelo" is the Chiloelo population of Tropheops sp. "Mauve Yellow", a geographic colour form from the Mozambique coast of Lake Malawi in the south-central part of the lake. It is the same species as Tropheops sp. "Mauve Yellow", distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Chiloelo fish at malawi.si

About the species

Tropheops sp. "Mauve Yellow" is an undescribed rock-dwelling mbuna recorded from a scattered set of localities on both shores of northern Lake Malawi and into Mozambican waters. Like other Tropheops it is a specialised algae grazer, taking its trade name from the mauve-and-yellow breeding colouration reported in males. It has not been the subject of a dedicated published account, so this record is necessarily conservative: it is placed in Tropheops on general anatomical grounds and described here mainly in terms of what the genus and the trade name itself indicate, rather than a fully documented independent colour description. No authority, publication year, FishBase number, or IUCN status should be attached to it.

Full Tropheops sp. "Mauve Yellow" account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Tropheops sp. "Mauve Yellow" "Chiloelo"
  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)