ID This Cichlid

[Marv_Levy]

my mom had bought 3 cichlids from the LPS they were in a tank that just said assorted cichilds. We know that 2 of them were convicts. But the 3rd looked like a convict but it was blue. Well the 2 normal convicts ended up breeding and now theres free swimmers in the tank. But here teh problem the mystery cichilid was getting so stressed out from being chased around by the parents he wasnt eating and was loosing color. So i told my mom to put him in my 75 gal tank with the fish i have since they are also cichlids. Well now hes doing much better hes gotten hsi color back and hes eating now. But i want to know what kind of cichlid it is. Here the best 2 pictures i could snap off of the little bugger. I was looking in the database up top anything with blue in it but nothing looks like him?

hopefully this 1st pic is good enough next one is pretty blurry

 

[Marv_Levy]

lol no body knows either

 

[fish_chic]

its a kenyi. the males and the females look the same as juvies but as the males get older they will turn yellow with brown stripes and the females stay the same light blue with the black to dark blue stripes. they are very nice fish i think they get about 6 inches and can be pretty mean.

 

[Marv_Levy]

thanks fish chic thats what it is looked at some pictures and it definitly the female with the blue

 

[fish_chic]

mary, just don't freak out if it starts turning a yellowish brown color, that means its a male. like i said all kenyis start out looking like the one you have now. so its kind of hard to see from the picture how big he or she is but it does look like he or she may be to small still to determine if its truely a female.

 

[Slevin]

Kenyis are african cichlids and require a much higher ph than convicts do. Im pretty sure that kenyis are schooling fish and that you need more than one. google it.

 

[GirlieGirl8521]

Yep, thats a Kenyi. It looks too small now to tell the sex.....so like said above, if its starts changing to a yellow/brown...then its a male.

They aren't really "schooling", but are best kept in groups. They are pretty aggressive Mbuna though, but I still wouldn't keep it with an Oscar.

Maybe there is an African Mbuna tank in your future?

 

[Lady G]

Definately Kenyi (you know that already I spose)..anyway I had mine for almost a year before it started changing color on me. Luckily I had already found out they do this or I would of been like WTF!

This is him before:

This is him now:

 

[Squawkbert]

But here teh problem the mystery cichilid was getting so stressed out from being chased around by the parents he wasnt eating and was loosing color.

Nice fish. The color deal is why (I've been told) that it isn't generally a good idea to mix African w/ new world Cichlids. They get their signals crossed.

New world Cichlids tend to get very dark when they're stressed or being submissive and they blanch to show dominance. W/ Africans, it's the opposite. If an African wants to back off, he blanches and any NW Cichlid will read that as a threat, respond in kind and go for the lip-lock. Meanwhile the African is "WTF?".
Or, the NW Cichlid gets dark (leave me alone, I'll go hide) when pushed around and the Africans go all medievil on them...

Basically, whoever flinches first ends up having a real bad day.

I may have the light/dark old world/new world changes backwards, but that's basically why most don't mix them.