Tiger Barb - color changes with light ?

[wrc1045]

Hello,

I believe I have a male tiger barb. with the lights off over night, he seems to have a light kind of faded color. When the lights come on in the monring, he turns a dark black with bright dark red all over. This happens with in a few minutes of the lights coming on? what's the deal with him? is he supposed to be that way?

Thanks for the responses

 

[BrkD]

im not sure about tiger barbs but some for some fish, the colors fade because they are stressed or shocked. my neon tetras colors fade when the lights are out but their colors come back after couple of minute after the lights are back on.

 

[rjrevers]

this coloring sounds a little like a black ruby barb

 

[Richie2times]

definately, i have black ruby barbs and the same thing happens to my male. females do kind of look like tiger barbs.

 

[Litespeed]

We have 5 tiger barbs and I just noticed within the last two days that two of them have faded color. I have checked the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and they are all fine. They are also doing "head standing", but I read somewhere that they could be breeding and they sometimes do that. I'm just worried about the faded colors, they all seems to be acting okay, except for the head standing and it's never happened before this. Could the fading and head standing all be connected???

 

[maxthedog123]

Check for other posts on Tiger Barbs. They tend to head stand after eating - they can gulp a lot of air. They also do it when they "sleep" at night. I have seen the red on males fade at night. Also, in a group as they get bigger, the dominant male will color up a bit when he wants to prove who is the alpha.