Is rapid colour change normal??

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We have a chocolate rainbow cichlid which is quite big, we recently took our green terror back the shop as the cichlid was getting picked on so they gave us two fire mouth cichlids and one zebra convict..... After a few minutes of them going in our chocolate cichlid changed colour to a much lighter brown, blue specks on fins and the eyes went a bright orange/red!!!! Also a big black stripe down it's side got loads darker and really stood out started swimming strangely too. Is this normal??? First time we have had cichlids! The new firemouth and convicts are alot smaller so the chocolate cichlid is the biggest fish in there. Any ideas??

 

[Mrc8858]

He is displaying his colors showing the other cichlids that he is the boss of the tank..your alpha male in a cichlid tank will always be the brightest and most vibrant

 

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Ah thanks! Looks pretty amazing now!

 

[BillD]

So which cichlid do you have ? Is it a Rainbow or a chocolate? The rainbow typically doesn't get as large as the chocloate.

 

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Well we were told it was a chocolate rainbow??? It's about 4 inches long maybe just a bit bigger, it has very similar patterns to the zebra convict but it's brown

 

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This is the cichlid