55 gallon african cichlid tank

" wrote in :

10 cichlids and we were wondering what would cause a fish to discolor
our labidochromis caerulues (electric yellow) is now a brown color and
we are not sure why, he doesnt looked stressed we have had our water

How brown is brown?

The typical stress colouration of the yellow Lab. is a whitish yellow with
dark yellowy brownish vertical striping, but Labidochromis sp. has been
bred in captivity for SO MANY generations that there are a lot of subtle
and dramatically different colour forms of this yellow fish.

In the wild this fish exists in many, many different colour forms--from
brown to blue--some of which appear in the trade on occasion. It may be
possible your Lab. is a cross breed (captive African cichlids are not very
discriminating), or it may be that this colouration is a result of a
particular line of breeding of yellow Lab. (probably more likely).

I imagine that you are observing a stress colouration, especially if you
see any vertical bars at all.

Alternatively, though I have never observed it with Labidochromis, some
cichlids possess amazing mimicry capacity in their colouration. I have
seen a species of Apistogramma (not at all an African) colour up exactly
like Mikrogeophagus ramirezi (not an African either) when incorrectly
placed in a tank full of them, and then switch back to its natural
colouration almost instantly when reunited with its kin.

Is this the only Lab. in your tank? Perhaps if you added some more Labs.
(preferably not of the same sex, though Labidochromis is hard to tell
apart) your Lab. will regain its dominate display colouration.

Incidentally, for your Africans to display their most colourful nature and
appearance you should aim to maintain your KH around 12 dKH. The GH
shouldn't matter much to most domestically raised fish, least of all
Labidochromis.