Bad Wolf

why do certain fish change color? like the chinese algae eater, it goes from one large stripe to multiple spots and just yesterday i did a 40% water change and my kuhlis were more orange and had a different pattern. it had a lot of orange on its belly.

aquarist48

Good morning. A lot of fish change color according to the mood they're in. Scared fish may be pale. Mating fish may change colors when IT's TIME

Bad Wolf

like the kribs or the female betta, ahh okay.

TedsTank

I agree, all fish change color to some degree to adapt to their enviroment according to their moods/feelings....learn those signs and you can often get a heads up if your setup is in the early stages of trouble.....

pale color change is sickness, fear, general "not feeling well".

Bright strong colors are often a sign of maturity, breeding, adjusting pecking orders.

Broken colors or patterns are often immature fish (like wearing camy's) and fish not yet adjusted to your tank.

Light or dark colors depends on substrate color, lighting.

Some fish just change colors as they mature...notice very young goldfish are frequently brown or very dark. As they get older they start developing the gold.

Scout

I've noticed that my angelfish change color when they're excited, like when they see me and know it's feeding time. Their colors get really bold. My blue blushing angelfish goes from nearly completely clear fins to really dark gray and black fins.

Most of my fish are pale when the light is off, but they brighten back up when the light is on.

Bad Wolf

pecking order? do kuhlis have a pecking order? because i had 5 kuhlis at one stage and 1 of them was a large and round (i think female) and had a different pattern from the other kuhlis. she died when she got attacked by a blue crayfish about a month ago. now one of the other kuhlis are adopting that same pattern, color and size as that prevcious one, could that have been the most dominant?

i thought this kuhli was a female because when it got attacked by the crayfish it spewed out little green things. i thought they were eggs, are kuhli eggs small and green?

thanks

TedsTank

Sorry about the pecking order thing....I don't know a thing about loaches. My comments are based more on my experiences with cichlids...but basically fish commumicate with color and changes in appearance, as in fin flashing, etc...not just attitude, and if you watch them enough you will be able to "read" them.

Bad Wolf

okay

MizRamzi

My blood parrots although all orange will get black spots on them every now and then. Next minute they'll be gone.