Polar Blue Convict Cichlids

Anyone have experience with polar blue convicts? When they were little they looked exactly the same. Now one is shedding its black stripes and getting a blueish tone with pink tones, other still have zebra like markings and white and black. They are from the same stock, same age, and were relatively the same size until the last few weeks.

 

Convict females in general develope a Red belly upon maturity. Maybe the red coloration on your Polar Blue Convicts indicates they are female.

 

I was kind of thinking the same thing as I have paired regular convicts but she doesn’t lose her stripe color. In my picture they both looked like the mostly black and white one up to a few weeks ago and all of a sudden Kirby (the one showing pink and fading stripes) got much larger, started to developed what looks like a nuchal hump and signs of mature male aggression.

 

When dealing with a hybrid species the answers to many things aren't readily found. Lol.
They are very nice looking Convicts.

 

The pink and blue color on the body indicates that this fish has a lot of HRP (Honduran Red Point) in it. This is where the blue for "Polar Blue" comes from. Females have more pinkish color, where regular convicts have bright orange or red. Regular Convicts and HRP are known to interbreed quite readily, and the crosses are quite variable in appearance.