normal for red empress?

[MarkoD]

i noticed in the past couple weeks one of my red empress is getting these black patches on it.

is this suppose to happen or is this some kind of parasite?

my smaller red empress is silver but seems to be getting the small spots on it

[Neesmo]

do you know if its been cross bred with anything??. it seems to be color morphing. i would just wait it out. im not sure if its the same as the taiwan reef.. they do not color up unless there is a female present. if the fish is very youg then its beause its not mature. i would just give it some time.

someone else chime in...

[MarkoD]

there is a female present i believe, the all silver one. im pretty sure they're pure red empress

and yeah he's starting to show color, i just didnt know if the black patches are normal or not

Edited November 3, 2010 by MarkoD

[Ishkabod]

I have a super red empress and the face looks different to me. I'm not sure if there is a difference there in the super vs the not super but i'm thinking that there is cross breeding problems. OB Peacock is what i would have thought if not for the face which is different. Good luck with your mystry. Try googling pictures and see what comes up.

Good luck

L

[fairdeal]

I have had super red empress for a long time and the picture is definitely not that of a pure line bred. I have never seen one ever turn blotchy like this. Blue color in the males starts at @ 3" in the face and gill plates and then the blue and red works its way back through the body and fins. By the time they are 3 1/2 to 4" they have the full body coloration of a super red. Some males may have some partial dark stripe lines above the lateral line but never below it and never blothes. The females stay silver with a black stripe on the lateral line.

There are a few decent pictures of males on cichlid-forum.com in the profile section - scroll down the Lake Malawi haplochromine menu to protomelas taeniolatus red.