Frontosa mood can affect their coloration, and they can go very pale or dark depending. Not quite a (man-made) red frontosa. Wait until it matures more, it's still young, new in the tank and has mbuna's for tank mates.
Most males will. I have foot-long frontosa's of the following variants: Burundi, Kigoma, Mpimbwe. None of my females have come close to this size (maybe other hobbyists have been luckier than I, in that regard).
They're natural (and nocturnal) piscoveres in the wild, so with full grown frontosa's in the tank 4" and smaller tank mates may end up as meals. (though Altolamprologus calvus & compressiceps appear to have some defenses against meeting this fate). When I introduced several 3"-3.5" frontosas into a tank containing full grown specimens the smaller fronts were eye'd as potential meals until they packed on another inch.
There are three primary frontosa catergories:
1. Kigoma variant (sometimes referred to as the 'true' frontosa). This is the 7-stripe variant. The other 7-stripe variant in this catergory is the Boulomboro.
2. The 'Northern Species': Primarily comprised of the Burundi and Kavala variants. 6-stripe frontosa's with vertical eyes stripes that extend above and below the eye. Frontosa's in this group seem to develop the largest nuchal humps.
3. The Gibberosa's. These are the southern variants in which the eye-strip is more of a lone-ranger mask than a vertical eye-bar. These variants are significantly blue-er/violet-er than the previous two groups. The Gibberosa's are broken down further into three geographic sub-groups:
- 3a. Tanzanians (Mpimbwe, Kipili, Samazi, Ikola and others)
- 3b. Zambians (Nangu, Chaitika, Sumbu and others)
- 3c. Zaire's (Kapampa (the so-called 'Zaire Blue), Moba, Kitumba and others)
I wouldn't include Cyphotilapia frontosa "Copperband" with these as they man-made and not collected from Lake Tanganyika.
