Gill Passman wrote:

I was wondering the same thing....however I'm now officially confused....

The three fish I have were sold to me as one male and two females. All of
them are blue. Only one has egg spots. The injured fish is a very much paler
blue. The other "female" has darkened over the last few weeks to much the
same colour as the male but without the egg spots and has a yellow stripe on
the dorsal fin. Just sanity checked myself on some photos taken around 6
weeks ago and the "females" were more of a powder blue....they also appear
to have fewer stripes... Now from just doing a quick bit of "googling" it
would appear that the females should be yellow, but I did see a couple of
times that they can also be blue but paler. All 3 of them are now almost 3
inches long - as I said I am now officially confused....

Gill

Getting less confused. More Google searching (while procrastinating
homework ;-)) reveals that there is a fish sold as "Electric Blue
Jonannii" that was first named Melanochromis sp. "Maingano" and reanamed
to M. cyaneorhabdos. They have little dimorphism, with the females
usually but not always being lighter in color. The males also have
longer pelvic fins and the females sometimes have a yellow border to the
anal fin.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/article...neorhabdos.php
http://www.tropheus.info/riftlakes/c...rhabdos_e.html
has a pic of the dark male and lighter colored female.

Melanochromis jonannii always has the stroing dimorphism with females
solid yellow, or rarely yellow with a brown stripe.

So, I think you have M. cyaneorhabdos and I hope it's not two males and
a female!

--
Elaine T __
http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__
rec.aquaria.* FAQ http://faq.thekrib.com