Guessing game ! Which African is this ??

[JuniorMonsterKeeper]

Hello all so I have a fish that’s great at guess who. I purchased this girl expecting her to be a certain type but I don’t think she got the memo. I know fish can change their colours appearance according to many diff factors but this girl I ve noticed does her changes at will sometimes by the second. She actually has roughly 4 diff color combinations that she changes too. I ve captured some of them and will capture the rest as I can. I apologize for the photos as I ve been doin some work in tank today and have risen my return tube above the water line as I have temporarily removed all airstones so have captured a lot of tiny air bubbles due to her residing on that side of the tank.

Well here we go guess who african cichlid style

 

[duanes]

I had a group of Pseudotropheus demasoni that changed colors in a similar manner, depending on mood, hierarchal or sexual status, and even when feeding, but I know of about 6 other species that do the same, and look very similar.

 

[duanes]

Just an FYI, demasoni, has now been put in the genus Chindongo, along with saulosi (males only also look similar to the one in your photo).

 

[JuniorMonsterKeeper]

Well I dunno if I should say it now but this guy/gal was in a tank with ice blue zebras. And upon first inspection and comparison it resembled my ice blue zebra female. So I guess this is gonna be an interesting grow out.

 

[JuniorMonsterKeeper]

Now that I think about it I ve seen fry stripping done and first hand seen demasoni fry come out of larger mouth brooders when stripped. So very possible an ice blue female picked up a demasoni egg n held it till it was stripped. But the growth rate of demasoni is so slow that it would be very noticeable as they grew out.