FishProfiles.com Message Forums

Hi all
I have some Juvenile Kribs in one of my tanks.
Two of the smallest ones are often dark black/blue but also seem to flip to various other colors. Mostly more like their parents.
They also turn on or off the vertical banding on their bodies.

This is new to me and stunning to watch, the others dont seem to do it. Is it an age thing?

My 5footer
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2379/2242540621_1a81dcb3c8.jpg

I think the colour change is to do with their mood. My adult Kribs definitely change colour, But certainly not as much as their children do. The females red belly certainly gets redder when she's ready to breed, and the pair of them definitely get darker when they think it's feeding time. I thought that I'd only seen the vertical stripes on the juveniles, but for the first time the other night, I came home and found the male with vertical stripes. Although once he'd spotted me, he obviously thought he was going to get fed and the stripes went. Perhaps the juveniles change colour more often and obviously than the parents as they have greater mood swings? I would imagine that being a small juvenile, many more things would seem big and threatening than to an adult, which may prompt the colour changes. Just my guesswork though.