Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Tropheops sp. "Orange Chest"

Tropheops sp. "Orange Chest" "Thumbi West Island"

Thumbi West Island — TOOM-bee WEST 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. "Orange Chest" account →

Specific to Thumbi West 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. "Orange Chest".

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 an orange chest/breast patch in males against a blue body; a full independently published colour description is not available.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Thumbi West Island population

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

Colour reference: living Thumbi West Island fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Tropheops sp. "Orange Chest" is an undescribed rock-dwelling mbuna recorded exclusively from Lake Malawi National Park and the surrounding Cape Maclear area in the southern part of the lake — a well-studied stretch of shoreline that has produced many of the earliest documented mbuna colour forms. Its trade name refers to an orange patch on the chest reported in males, set against the blue body typical of Tropheops. As with several Tropheops trade forms, no dedicated published description exists beyond its recognition as a distinct population by collectors and hobbyists. It carries no authority, no publication year, no FishBase number, and no IUCN assessment.

Full Tropheops sp. "Orange Chest" account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Tropheops sp. "Orange Chest" "Thumbi West 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)