tapajos redheads- dominance, & coloration effects?

[petspoiler]

Most of my redheads started coloring up and showing red on their heads, except for the smallest runt.
Then the largest 2 paired up, and have spawned three times in that group tank.
Now the rest of the group have colored-down, and are staying like that between spawnings too.
It made sense while the pair is spawning, bcuz the female gets real dominant on the whole tank. She even bosses the male heckelii ;-) and keeps all the fish herded way off at the other end of tank.
but the eggs got eaten every time, so there's been no fry care.
So, the rest of them are reverting to younger, "sub-dominant" colorations. (??)

'Tis not real wonderful, although 'OK', when I thought there might be some fry up & running..but now just a tank full of NON-redheads is kind of strange. after all, they were sporting more red before.
What's up with this, will they outgrow this phase? The female isn't always dominating the others, only around spawning times.

 

[Crazyfish88]

I noticed the same thing with my group of Tapajos. I have a group of 10 x 4"-6" 2 males 8 females. The tank use to be overstocked with a bunch of different kinds of Geos and with larger male different species which made my tapajos lose their red heads. Then I started down sizing the stock and now only have the Tapajos dominating the tank and now their colors started to shine again. I have 2 pairs going and they spawned twice but the parents ate the eggs both times...


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[petspoiler]

I noticed the same thing with my group of Tapajos. I have a group of 10 x 4"-6" 2 males 8 females. The tank use to be overstocked with a bunch of different kinds of Geos and with larger male different species which made my tapajos lose their red heads. Then I started down sizing the stock and now only have the Tapajos dominating the tank and now their colors started to shine again. I have 2 pairs going and they spawned twice but the parents ate the eggs both times...

my 75G just has 7 redheads from the same batch, with 1m 1f heckelii who aren't of mating age yet, & although the m heckelii is bigger than redheads, he's mellow. Only the spawning F redhead gets bossy :-/

 

[Crazyfish88]

It could be a alpha male thing which is the reason why your other Tapajos lose their colors. Your dominate pair making the others lose their colors as females usually color up when they know they have a chance to mate with the male.


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[peathenster]

It's a mood thing. They can change color very quickly from day to day, probably in a matter of hours. For the most part it doesn't have much to do with food or water. I actually made a thread about thus a while ago. For example, they are usually in bright colors when they spawn, but as soon as they pick up the wigglers, they change into a very dull color, perhaps to avoid at attracting attention.

 

[petspoiler]

It could be a alpha male thing which is the reason why your other Tapajos lose their colors. Your dominate pair making the others lose their colors as females usually color up when they know they have a chance to mate with the male.

.. thinking along those lines, it appears that 5 out of the 7 see no chances of mating ;-) LOL.
Their colors used to return between spawns.

 

[petspoiler]

It's a mood thing. They can change color very quickly from day to day, probably in a matter of hours. For the most part it doesn't have much to do with food or water. I actually made a thread about thus a while ago. For example, they are usually in bright colors when they spawn, but as soon as they pick up the wigglers, they change into a very dull color, perhaps to avoid at attracting attention.

Pete, guzzling all that soft water has turned you into an annoyingly optimistic MFKer. LOL/just kidding.
The mating pair has kept their colors the whole time.
but all the non-spawners have steadily quit switching colors back on, for weeks now. I swear they're driving in reverse.
Is it because I haven't pulled the pair out from the groups' tank?
Don't you usually pull them to raise fry? That would also be removing the dominant pair & effect the others.
Is my 75G too small for the group to sexually mature together?

Knowing redheads do best in groups, I thought it was a continual thing. but still, I've tried to do that with a fairly light stocking.