Someone gave these to me saying that they are yellow labs, but they look like something may be mixed with them somewhere back in there line. What do you guys think?
are these true yellow labs?
- Thread starter little_bitt
- Start date
The last pick is the best one I could get. Two of the pics have a true yellow lab with the questionable one underneath it.
Well if you look at the last pic, you can see a strip going along its body. I have 3 like that. It doesn't show up good in the pics. I wish I could get a good clear pic. Do you think they could have some melanochromis auratus was mixed in the line a few generations ago or something. When it is in the mood, it will get a darkish tint to it, like a real fadded black.
i dunno about that, mine does it too, but most fish have at least some control over the shades of color they display, i just figured it was one of those situations
DeputyChiefJR said:
Completely false, the only sure way to sex yellow labs is to vent them... I've seen females you'd swear were males and vice versa.
little_bitt, from what I can see, what you have there are just some poor quality yellow labs. They may or may not have been mixed at some point, or might just have been in-bred. The dark stripes (on strange parts of the body) are usually seen as an indicator of poor quality (although a dominant male may go quite dark like that).
There are different variants of Labidochromis caeurelus. One variant is very very yellow, while other variants are like your odd ones, yellow on top but have a lot of white on them as well.
Its hard to tell, but I would not be too worried about it. The colors may change over time as well, as thier diet and environment influence thier color.
-Diana
Labidochromis caeurelus vary greatly in color depending on what part of Lake Malawi they originate from or if they were selectively bred for a solid bright yellow color. Color is not an indicator of breeding quality or inbreeding, its just that most people prefer the solid yellow and would like to see that strain kept pure and separate from the black barred color varieties. The latin name refers to the fact that the majority of wild labs are a slightly bluish white color with a black lateral stripe on the dorsal fin. From what I've read the solid yellows are the ones that are inbred as they originate from a few pairs harvested from a very small wild population of that color that one of the early rift lake cichlids collectors did not want to see harvested to the point of extinction.
The yellow labs in your pictures appear to have proper body and fin proportions and are most likely not hybrids. They may not even be black barred. A young black barred specimen shows darker colors, the yellow even gets a little grey, with black veritical markings in a tank with large dominant fish. In a tank without larger fish they will be more yellow but the barrs still show as a grey not a dark yellow.
The yellow labs in your pictures appear to have proper body and fin proportions and are most likely not hybrids. They may not even be black barred. A young black barred specimen shows darker colors, the yellow even gets a little grey, with black veritical markings in a tank with large dominant fish. In a tank without larger fish they will be more yellow but the barrs still show as a grey not a dark yellow.
The first pic does show a slight bluish tint on the underside of him. He does that doo. The bright yellow one in the 2 previous photos are from completely different places and differ a lot.
