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Hi all, a very good friend has sent me this pic of of one of his trifasciata. It's a young male about 3cm more or less. What do you think? He's going to become more blue when he grow up?
Looks like he's already grown up, based on those dorsal rays. Either he has low melanin production, or the bare tank and light-colored surroundings are making him stay pale. He might darken if placed in a tank with dark sand and more wood, plants, rocks, etc. Was he tank-bred, and if so, do any of his brothers and sisters look like this, or are they all normal colored?
I agree with Gerald. It's fully mature. If only 3 cm then it is a stunted fish (not a problem really, breeding-wise). It appears to be a xanthistic sport to me.
As my friend says to me, he has been always as yellow as you can see in the picture, he has been in a "blackwater biotope" for to or tyree months and didn't show any diference.
I don't know what is a "xanthistic sport" fish, could it be a mutation that could be interesting to breed or it's a defect?
The chemical pathway toward synthesizing melanin involves some intermediate steps that can produce yellow and red pigments. In a "xanthistic" mutation, some or all of the melanin production gets side-tracked and makes yellow pigment instead of black. As long it doesn't have any other ill-health side-effects, it could be an interesting mutation to breed.