Rod Tropheus

Breeders and ichthyologists have published much infomation, news and experience about genus Tropheus. That´s why I am going to mention just some brief notes. Genus Tropheus lives in the whole lake and consists of several species and dozens of colour forms. All of them live on seaweed from stones, with which they swallow a small proportion of meet food – little invertebrates and a bigger proportion of ballast materials – approximately 30 % - mainly of sand. Their digestive tract with a long gut is adopted for digestion of such rather poor food. It means that quality food of high nutritious standard can do harm to fish in aquarium conditions. It can harm them in the way that fish ( mainly caught ones ) can put on weight very quickly, which has a negative influence on their reproduction. In the wild, males defend a territory of such a size that cannot usually be reached in aquarium conditions. Therefore, the situation is solved by breeding a group of 20 – 30 fish to diminish the aggressiveness of a dominant male. In such a situation, the male cannot concentrate on just one fish it would kill within shorter or longer period of time.

Tropheus moorii Red Bishop