My female Kenyi turned yellow

[WendiDell]

I know your all going to say if it turned yellow it's male. I normally would too, but she's already had fry, twice. So gender isn't the issue.
She had her last bunch of fry a week ago. The next day I put her back in the tank with the others and she started to turn yellow. Over the next few days the yellow spread, she's only a very light pastel yellow, but she's definitely yellow.
Any one with any ides's???

 

[kay-bee19]

Females of some dimorphic mbuna species can assume male-like coloration at certain times, from what I understand it's dominance-related. Has anything changed in the aquarium tankmate-wise?

 

[Ausfish]

I agree with kay-bee. One thing to add, my male lombardoi always holds a couple of eggs when the females mouth is full. Just food for thought.

 

[WendiDell]

Females of some dimorphic mbuna species can assume male-like coloration at certain times, from what I understand it's dominance-related. Has anything changed in the aquarium tankmate-wise?

Nothing has changed in months, other than she and another fish had fry, and we are waiting on a third to spit hers out.
Other than fry I haven't changed anything but the water.
All my Mbuna are getting close to being adults and are a little more aggressive than they used to be but nothing serious, yet.
So I don't know what caused it but it's nice to know that it's not an unusual for Female Kenyi's to turn yellow.
So thank you

 

[WendiDell]

I agree with kay-bee. One thing to add, my male lombardoi always holds a couple of eggs when the females mouth is full. Just food for thought.

She spit about 30 fry this last time so I don't think it was over flow. Besides they look just like her, when she's blue.
But that is also very cool to know. I've never heard of the males holding a few of the eggs. I had noticed that the males start to chase all the other fish away from the females before we could see that they were holding. I thought it was kind of sweet and with Mbunas, sweet doesn't happen to often. Sweet isn't exactly their personality profile.

 

[Ausfish]

You're right, it's really not! I kept one of my fry in the hope to have a second female and spread his "attention". Then one day overnight she almost tore the alpha-male to pieces and turned yellow. He was in isolation for a couple of weeks and the so-hoped second female is now the new boss of the tank.
Be very careful to only ever have one male adult kenyi in your tank, they don't like competition

 

[WendiDell]

You're right, it's really not! I kept one of my fry in the hope to have a second female and spread his "attention". Then one day overnight she almost tore the alpha-male to pieces and turned yellow. He was in isolation for a couple of weeks and the so-hoped second female is now the new boss of the tank.
Be very careful to only ever have one male adult kenyi in your tank, they don't like competition

I only have one male Kenyi and even he was suppose to have been a female, oops.
I didn't keep any of her first fry and I wasn't planning on keeping any of these either.
She is the oldest female I have, of any of my female fish, but she's also one of the smallest. Who knows how the Alpha's are chosen.

 

[bigbanker]

My female turned yellow as well. I miss her gorgeous blue that she was before. She was stunning. How does your ph look? has that remained steady? Also how many do you have? I'd love to know what causes this so I can get her back to blue!

 

[alLexX]

My female turned yellow as well. I miss her gorgeous blue that she was before. She was stunning. How does your ph look? has that remained steady? Also how many do you have? I'd love to know what causes this so I can get her back to blue!

if the yellow is dominance related,the only way i can think of is have another fish become dominant

 

[bigbanker]

interesting! I've got a douche bag auratus that the kenyi won't even go near. Maybe get a male kenyi?

 

[WendiDell]

My female turned yellow as well. I miss her gorgeous blue that she was before. She was stunning. How does your ph look? has that remained steady? Also how many do you have? I'd love to know what causes this so I can get her back to blue!

My water parameters have stayed the same for months. I do PWC twice a week.
I have 12 Mbuna and 3 BN Plecos. I'm still trying to add a few more females but I'm having some trouble finding females to match my males.
The dominance thing makes sense, but I have no idea how to make her turn blue again. I guess time will tell if We get our beautiful blue fish back.

 

[WendiDell]

interesting! I've got a douche bag auratus that the kenyi won't even go near. Maybe get a male kenyi?

I already have a male Kenyi. But he isn't the male Alpha, my Red Top Zebra is.
Other than their size they look identical right now. It's a good thing my male Kenyi is so much bigger or I wouldn't be able to tell them apart.

 

[Ausfish]

One thing that happened to me once in my early days is that I used food that had added hormones I didn't know about. After using that for a while my males had stunning colors and my female red empress started to color up. When I stopped using it everything returned back to normal within a week.

 

[Cilantro]

The only thing i have read about this is that when females are holding or have had fry can turn yellow also as dominance type thing im not exactly sure what else it said though

 

[WendiDell]

Every one of my Mbuna, Pleco, Angelfish and Black Skirt Tetra have been raised on NLS (New Life Spectrum). Never anything with hormones, so that would be causing the color change. Besides if it were something like that all my fish would be affected, not just my one female Kenyi.