Very red gills?

[Buphy]

So I was watching my tank when I noticed that my Jack Dempsey's belly and around the gills were much more pink/red than normal. Does this look like just some brightening of colors or should it be a red flag that something is wrong health wise? About to do a water test but here's a pic for now.

 

[jonclark96]

Looks like normal coloration to me. I've seen pictures of fish with a deep red coloring in the throat that are stunning. I think that a lot of the red colors have been lost in the aquarium strain fish. Yours looks healthy to me.

 

[Buphy]

Normally it wouldn't bother me, since it's very pretty, but since it's just more than normal and I resently redecorated the tank with old coral I want to make sure no one else thinks it's a problem.

 

[Aquanero]

Check your water. See if the parameters are off.

 

[duanes]

As Jon said, there are location variants of JDs that can get very red, you just may have been lucky and got a red variant.
Doesn't look inflamed to me.

 

[tlindsey]

Beautiful JD.

 

[Buphy]

Welp it's actually bad. Did my water test and everything was up. I'm blaming the coral. Just did a 50% water change and I'll do one in the morning. I'll make a separate thread on if the coral should be removed or if I should "tough it out".

 

[duanes]

Which parameters are up?
This could tell if its the coral, or not.
If pH, hardness, and alkalinity are up, yes coral might be the source.
If other parameters such as ammonia, nitrite, this would not be due to the coral.

 

[Buphy]

Honestly I just tested ammonia and nitrite and they were both really high. Didn't test anything else, just started the water change. Only reason I blame the coral is that's the only change. These are not levels I'd expect to see in my tank a week ago when I added the coral.

 

[TexOscar1]

How old is the coral? Any chance there was stuff that could have died on it that could have spiked the ammonia/nitrite, like it started a new cycle?