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NEW YORK CITY's HOME GROWN AFRICAN CICHLID FISHERIES |
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Tropheus moorii "Kala Island Yellow Rainbow" |
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One of the easier Tropheus to breed, the Yellow Rainbow race is found around Kala Island. Not shown is the difficult to photograph male with an all yellow body. This can be seen in a brightly lit environment with lightly colored substrate. At other times, a greenish hue is visible. Females lack the rusty-red head and yellow body visible in males and are a pale yellow with grayish-brown stripes and head.
Coloration seems to vary from individual to individual and also with age. This is clearly visible with the blue face and orange dorsal fin of the juvenile, which changes into a rusty-red face and pale-blue spotted dorsal fin of an adult.
Not only is this fish's coloration difficult to describe by us, but also by other yellow colored Tropheus, whose males seem to confuse Kala Island females for their own. Therefore, mixing this fish with similarly colored moorii would surely lead to hybridization. |
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Another male, showing bars over a yellow body. A dominant male will not show the brown bars and sometimes has the solid yellowish body. |
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From this angle, this male shows his red head. Males will also possesses an enlarged nose flap, which grows over the upper lip. |
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Four month old fry showing a bluish white and orange highlights in the dorsal fin. The vertical stripes shown will eventually lose their intensity in dominant males and the red face is the last to develop. |
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A rather aggressive race, fry are observed displaying and fighting quite often, much to our frustration. Deaths are quite common if the fry tank is too small. |
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This female is laying an orange egg, while the male stimulates her by gasping on her ovagenital opening. |
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Immediately after laying the egg, the male and female switch positions, at which point the female picks up the egg in her mouth and gasps at the male's ovagenital opening, stimulating the release of sperm from him. |
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| FOR MORE INFORMATION REGARDING: |
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| Our basic tank setups. |
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| The ecology of the Rift Valley Lakes |
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| About us |
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| Homepage |
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Back to Tropheus moorii main page |
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