early this morning as i was turning on the lights on my tank i noticed something very peculiar. my normally lemon yellow auratus was a dark murky grey. I know that fish tone down their colors at night but 3 hours later he still hadnt changed back to his normal colors. i also noticed that the normally black lines on his lateral nerve had become a bright irridescent blue and that the grey color has almost turned to black under his ventral fin and gills. worried that something might be wrong with my water quality i checked and everything checked out optimally. Is it possible that it is changing sexes, because i know the male is black and blue? he is the only auratus in the tank atm ( mostly because he kills all others of the same species). whats going on here, is my fish a transexual or is something else going on?
auratus cichlid sex change?
- Thread starter HazMATT
- Start date
males have female coloring until reaching maturity, or if the sub dominate male of the tank... Males will often kill others of its kind harassing them to death...
I had 3 female colored Auratus and 2 started to get the male coloring at around 2.5 in. Then one retreated back to yellow and the other went full out dark. I have read in a lot of books about this ability for these fish to actually change sex. That's bogus of course and its just the non dominant males coming out of hiding.
They turn at sexual maturity if they are dominant. If you have only a couple and have more than one male, you should remove all but one male and add a several more females.
perfectly normal for auratus to do .. infact i rarely see any matured auratus including females stay yellow.. they all seem to get darker and some {like mine even close to black in color}.
i just bought a big 4 inch black auratus. it was in its own tank with a bunch of bichirs and catfish probably for a year. is it a sure male or an independent dominant female? it was the only african cichlid in the tank.
i already have a 3 inch male auratus in my other tank. dont wanna mix him/her in until im sure. any way of sexing auratus besides the color? he has very noticable yellow on all 3 fins but NO EGG SPOTS.
i already have a 3 inch male auratus in my other tank. dont wanna mix him/her in until im sure. any way of sexing auratus besides the color? he has very noticable yellow on all 3 fins but NO EGG SPOTS.