Tropheops sp. "Weed" "Chitande Island"

Chitande Islandchee-TAHN-deh 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. "Weed" account →

Specific to Chitande 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. "Weed".

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 dimorphismYesGenus-typical strong sexual dichromatism expected (bright territorial males, plain females); an independently published colour description for this specific form is not available.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chitande Island population

Tropheops sp. "Weed" "Chitande Island" is the Chitande Island population of Tropheops sp. "Weed", a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the far northern part of the lake. It is the same species as Tropheops sp. "Weed", distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Chitande Island fish at malawi.si

About the species

Tropheops sp. "Weed" is an undescribed rock-dwelling mbuna recorded chiefly from the Malawian shore of northern Lake Malawi, with a couple of records from the Tanzanian side. As with several Tropheops trade forms, no dedicated published description exists beyond its recognition as a distinct locality-based population by collectors and hobbyists, so this account describes it primarily in terms of genus-typical Tropheops biology together with what its distribution and trade name indicate. It carries no authority, no publication year, no FishBase number, and no IUCN assessment.

Full Tropheops sp. "Weed" account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Tropheops sp. "Weed" "Chitande 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)