New MacMasteri Fry

[snowb]

I'm just curious about fry color. I have some macmasteri fry that are around 4 weeks old and there is one that is a real dark gray and another that is a medium colored gray. The others are light grey. Why the color difference so early?

 

[MacZ]

Fry colouration is camouflage colouration by default. Why the nuances: Frankly, nobody knows.
Wild guesses:
- If they all had the exact same colour they might stand out more from the background and so the whole group would be in danger of being spotted.
- Maybe the two are sick?
- Maybe it's genetic.
- Maybe...

You get the gist. Nobody will really know and to my knowledge nobody has put research into this.

 

[snowb]

Fry colouration is camouflage colouration by default. Why the nuances: Frankly, nobody knows.
Wild guesses:
- If they all had the exact same colour they might stand out more from the background and so the whole group would be in danger of being spotted.
- Maybe the two are sick?
- Maybe it's genetic.
- Maybe...

You get the gist. Nobody will really know and to my knowledge nobody has put research into this.

Appreciate your thoughts. This is the best place i know with extensive apisto knowledge. Other than the coloration , their behavior seems normal. Time will tell. I'd thought about isolating them just to see.

 

[MacZ]

Isolating before the mother stops caring reduces survival rates drastically.

 

[snowb]

Isolating before the mother stops caring reduces survival rates drastically.

All of the fry have been moved to another tank. They were being cared for by both parents for 3 weeks and then she started to show less interest and i removed them after that. She showed behavior as if she was wanting to lay another batch of eggs. I didnt want to chance her eating them. The parents started to show aggression to one another. Once the fry was removed. The parents went back to normal behavior.