Yeah I've been looking at that. From what it looks like most females are a dull color. Not nearly as vibrant as the makes but I want a friendly tank rather then a dominant male tank
It took some switching of fish but so far my fish are peaceful. If I get one that's to big of bully, I trade him in for a different fish. Even with peaceful fish you can get personalities that don't match.
I've had to take several fish back to my not so LFS, because they didn't fit in with the group. I just kept trying until I got fish that liked each other.
Of course all that work goes out the window when one of the females starts holding. Then they all get a bit antsy about territories. But that's not unusual with Africans. the way I resolve the territory thing is, when I do the twice a week PWC I rearrange the whole tank. Each fish has a favorite spot, so I just switch the spots around. My fish are to busy finding their spot and setting it up the way they like it, to be fighting over it. It's a PITA I know, but territorial battles when fish are pregnant are common. So I keep them busy thinking about other things.
Since I got rid of the worst bullies and only have fish that tolerate each other, I haven't had any fighting in my tank or any stress related diseases or deaths. And right now my ratio is off, I've way to many males and I haven't been able to find any females for my Alpha male. Which could cause all kinds of trouble, but the fish I have get along with each other, including the males.
You can have a peaceful tank with aggressive and semi-aggressive fish. You needn't give up great color for peace. You just need to weed out the ornery ones.
Early on I had a Red Zebra that was a psychotic serial killer. If he couldn't kill them outright, he'd harass them until they'd die from stress. He killed more than half of my fish, most of them female, in just over a week. It took a long time to replace all the females he killed. I took him back to the FS and as a couple of the other RZ I had grew up they started to act the same way. So I returned all my RZ and I won't ever have another one. But not all RZ are like that, it was just my experience with them.
I have a couple of Kenyi's by accident. Some people have had very aggressive Kenyi's and won't ever have them again. But the 1 male and 1 female I have (labeled wrong at the FS) get along with all the other fish, so I kept them. Even though they were both suppose to have been female Cobalt Blue Zebras. But you can't always tell when they are so tiny when you buy them.
Don't give up on certain fish because of what they
may do
, or because someone else had a bad one, like my RZ. Fish are no different that people, some are good some are bad, some get along with others some don't.
I'm not suggesting you go about mixing Angels and Oscars. Some rules are concrete. But don't settle either because they may not get along, because they may get along just fine. Won't know unless you try.