My Salvini, Colour Change?

[SouthernCross]

Hi all,

Just thought I'd share a pic of my Salvini who I've had for a couple of months now. The top pic is a few days after I brought her home and the second one I took tonight. As you can see she's really yellowed up beautifully, but I was just wondering how long it should take until her belly starts turning pink? I am planning on keeping her alone (as I've heard the horror stories of what a pair can do aggression wise) and was wondering if she will go pink without a male, or only in the presence of one?

She's a bit of an experiment, so far she's been quite well behaved, I was prepared that she might not be and had a back up plan to move her elsewhere if need be, but things are going well so far, we will see. She is in a 450 litre with other semi-aggressive mid sized central and SA cichlids. She is not the biggest yet though. She seems quite happy, chases the odd fish away from her cave but never seen her attack anybody. Yet... Fingers crossed!

 

[hobby5]

Beautiful fish! There are different color morphs of Salvinis some have more others have no pink belly. I would your female expect to stay like this and not to develop a pink belly. Sorry.

 

[SouthernCross]

Oh that's a shame! What characteristic does she have that makes you think she won't? she is till only very small. 3 inches maybe?

 

[hobby5]

They can easily breed with 3 inch. And she is bright yellow, meaning she is the dominat fish in the tank, showing full coloration. So if there was pink belly it would show. From my experience it does not suddenly develop later. Did you see the parents?

 

[SouthernCross]

No I didn't, got her at a LFS

 

[dougie]

With or without the pink, lovely looking fish. Always wanted one but scared off because of the tales of them smashing tankmates

 

[SouthernCross]

Well there's been no smashing yet, fingers crossed!

 

[beechey]

i love my salvini my sometimes has a lovely blue glow mines a good 6" gets on with all tank mates quite friendly really , mines really fat lol keep thikin  it might cross breed with something in the tank as its really fat lol

 

[Bettatamer]

How big can these guys get? I was hoping to get another cichlid tank, I used to have a 10 gallon with my pair of convicts and their 3 young offspring, but I had to get rid of them when I moved.
I really miss them and I'm thinking I might just get another tank to put some cichlids in. 

 

[SouthernCross]

Just an update, as you can see only 2-3 weeks later the pink coloration on the anal fin is starting to deepen and maybe spread up towards the belly? Also the pink patch on the dorsal is a lot brighter. We may get a pink belly yet!

Beta tamer, everything you read says something different about the size of these guys. I've read between 6-9 inches. The males are the larger, so I'm not expecting this fish to get anywhere near that.

 

[Jesse]

That's funny about being aggressive, mine pretty much hides all day until feeding time.