210 gallon Frontosa build

[Caperguy99]

They will mate, for sure. The bars on yours would be darker, and the hood more apparent if you had darker substrate or environment. If you have a programmable light try reducing the brightness and seeing if the blacks & blues darkens up & pops some more.
Apart from the deep purply blues, the hood is my favorite distinction. This is the clearest pic I have of my lone mikula's hood. This pic was taken in 2021 when he was about 4-5" View attachment 1551085

What a beautiful picture! So dark blue - mine are still lighter, and I can’t wait to see them darken.

Did you say you no longer keep fronts? I’m loving mine so far!

 

[danotaylor]

What a beautiful picture! So dark blue - mine are still lighter, and I can’t wait to see them darken.

Did you say you no longer keep fronts? I’m loving mine so far!

Thanks mate.
I have a lon male Mikula. I lost the others in my group to a power outage when I was visiting my parents in Australia last November

 

[Caperguy99]

I just walked in the room and my biggest fish looked super washed out, like nearly white, with a visible black lateral line. Then literally like 25 seconds later he was back to normal - regular dark lines and no lateral line visibility.

Do they change colour like this just based on mood? It was so strange that I went to take a photo, but by the time I was at the tank he had returned to normal.

 

[danotaylor]

Hmm that’s odd mate. Mine will power his bars up & down but they have never disappeared completely & never seen a black lateral line.
Bright lights over white substrate will definitely affect how dark the barring is. A lot of front keeps mix some black substrate though the white sand, or use black substrate, and light their tanks with predominantly blue light. Remember these are deep water, low light fish in their native environment.
If the fish in question is otherwise behaving normally and eating I would chalk it up to environmental conditions.

 

[Caperguy99]

Taking danotaylor advice, I reimagined the settings on the light - both dimming it and adding in a variety of blues.

I love the result! They’re showing a lot more blue colour, darkening up on the stripes, and even coming out front more often. Here are a couple of photos.

 

[ken31cay]

All of the Moba I've kept much prefer dim lights. I personally like to keep only a very slight tinge of blue in my lights which is practically unoticeable to the eye but still helps their color pop a little more.

 

[danotaylor]

Taking danotaylor advice, I reimagined the settings on the light - both dimming it and adding in a variety of blues.

I love the result! They’re showing a lot more blue colour, darkening up on the stripes, and even coming out front more often. Here are a couple of photos.

Looks amazing mate. Glad it’s working out for you and the fish are more comfortable and showing better color!

 

[Caperguy99]

Added an Oase CrystalSkim 600 to get rid of some persistent biofilm. It’s done a great job so far! No longer any film to be seen.

 

[danotaylor]

Coming along nicely mate!

 

[nausicaa84]

Beautiful build. Definitely one of my favorites on the site I've seen.