Yellowing chiclids

1737 Views 10 Replies 2 Participants Last post by DJRansome, Feb 22, 2021

jeverden

Discussion Starter · Feb 21, 2021

Hello,

I've recently noticed a lot of the chiclids in my aquarium have had yellow tones to them. We had one larger chiclid that turned completely yellow before dying (was exhausted, skin eventually turned whitefish with sores etc). Right before this occurred he slowly went from his typical blue color to completely yellowish / oranges. We have quite a few smaller chiclids that are now maturing from breeding that suddenly started happening in the tank that also seem to be developing this yellowish tinge in certain spots. We do have an orange chiclid that could potentially be the father to the offspring of a blue chiclid unsure as there have been multiple births of fry.

Tank is 75 gallon
Ph is around 7.5
Kh 80
Nitrate between 20-40
Nitrite 0

I thought this might be velvet disease so I've been treating with Copperfield for 2 weeks and keeping tank temp around 83 (usually kept at 79). I've recently add a canister filter rated for 150 gal along with my original over the back filter, and a pump as my nitrite was around 1 when I lost the other fish ( i did a series of water changes over a few days and cleaned filter). Since then nitrite hasn't registered on test strip. I've removed all carbon during the treatment. Up until today I've kept the fish covered in darkness as well as I heard velvet disease needs light to continue.

I'm questioning whether its natural coloring or what could be going on. Will attach picks.

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jeverden

Discussion Starter · #2 · Feb 21, 2021

See attached pics.

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DJRansome

· #3 · Feb 21, 2021

Is the species Metriaclima lombardoi a.k.a. kenyi? Females and juveniles are blue barred fish and adult males turn yellow as they mature.

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jeverden

Discussion Starter · #4 · Feb 21, 2021

I'm unsure they were marked assorted African chiclids each time I made a purchase. Most of the ones I snapped a pic of are the result of unintended breeding. Ill snap a pick of each different color / species in the tank. Could these possibly be a hybrid?

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jeverden

Discussion Starter · #5 · Feb 21, 2021

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jeverden

Discussion Starter · #6 · Feb 21, 2021

This one has a sad story. I was cleaning the tank out around a year ago and thought I had transferred all fish. He managed to hide quietly in a ceramic log that has many passage ways and no way to see in it. I cleaned the log with extremely hot water and left it outside the tank for at least 10 mins. After a while he swam out of the log completely white with obvious burned skin in several areas. Somehow he managed to survive and his color has slowly returned over the last year or so. Felt absolutely terrible I cooked him without noticing and thought he was a gonner for sure.

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DJRansome

· #7 · Feb 21, 2021

The last one is extremely aggressive. The blue barred ones look similar to kenyi. If those are the ones where some of them turn yellow I would assume that is not disease or injury, but normal growth.

The solid blue one and the solid yellow-orange one those are not turning yellow, correct? And not the one with the horizontal stripes?

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jeverden

Discussion Starter · #8 · Feb 21, 2021

Yes correct no color changes on the solid yellow / orange one or on 2 of the solid blue ones. Out of the smaller ones maybe 40% of them have the yellow.

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jeverden

Discussion Starter · #9 · Feb 21, 2021

On the smallest of ones none have yellow either.

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jeverden

Discussion Starter · #10 · Feb 21, 2021

Also not sure if its the lighting but sometimes it seems more pronounced, assuming they don't change colors back and forth though so guessing the lighting?

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DJRansome

· #11 · Feb 22, 2021

Nope. African cichlids like these mbuna from Lake Malawi change the intensity of the colors from moment to moment depending on whether they are afraid or showing off or resting comfortably.

So assume this was something happening separate from the color change to yellow: was exhausted, skin eventually turned whitefish with sores etc).

Or the fish was maturing into a male and turning yellow, but maybe there are too many males in your tank so the other males harassed him so there would end up being only one yellow male/tank.

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