Seemingly random colour changes in Royal Farlowella

I'm currently keeping 2 royal farlowella which are 2.5 and 3 inches respectively. A curious thing I notice is that the 3 inch one tends to have strange colour switches in which it gets really pale and loses all colour in the pattern, and then sometimes it regains the pattern and looks completely normal. At first it was quite concerning, but this has happened multiple times and the fish's behaviour never changed, and its diet and poop are healthy so I'm not worried anymore just confused.

Has this happened to anybody else or just me?



Here's the fish ^

a lot of fish can change color, as camouflage, or by mood & or when exposed to temperature changes... I think Farowella are in that group... do you notice it more when it's on different surfaces, or when it's on it's favorite spot???

Magnum Man said:

a lot of fish can change color, as camouflage, or by mood & or when exposed to temperature changes... I think Farowella are in that group... do you notice it more when it's on different surfaces, or when it's on it's favorite spot???

Click to expand...

Not really. These colour changes last for a couple days at a time, and generally the pale phase lasts longer. At first I thought it had to do with feeding, but that went out of the window after more observation. What I do know is that it started when I added too many algae wafers and it overate, and I had to remove all the extra food before it popped.

Here’s a good pic of it while it’s colourless


And here’s a pic of the other one for reference

I wouldn't be worried about them. These fish can change color by mood and change of water parameters.