Senegal Bichir Coloration Question

[rsandelius]

I've been feeding my senegal (Little Buddy) the Hikari sinking carnivore pellets from day one, and I've noticed that starting from his anal fins and continuing to the tip of his tail, he's developing a different brownish color than the rest of his body, which is just kind of an average mud>yellow>white gradiation. In his tail area, it goes to almost a full-on "crayon brown" with a strong orangish tint to it. Normal? Does that mean the food that I'm giving him is bringing out his colors? Just curious....

(I just noticed... look at the picture on my avatar... the tail section of him is the same color as that little patch behind his pectoral (hope I'm right... you know... the fins that stick out of his sides behind his gills)... hopefully that helps to explain it better...)

[StreetCypher]

sounds like normal maturation from juvenile to sub adult to me, but there could be a lot of things involved.

How old is it and length (the whole maturation process) how long has it been on the black sand for (color change depending on sub color)

[rsandelius]

Bought it at Wal-Mart at 2.5" (age truly unknown, sorry I can't clarify more) 2.5 months ago. What a coink-eee-dink!
He's now 6" and a total pig (took out one of the cories). He has been in the black sand as long as I've owned him.
His mannerisms are the same as when I first bought him. Extremely lively, swims around alot, and tries to eat two Hikari Sinking Carnivore Pellets at a time... like I said... he's a hog.