My Turquoise Severum's Color Changes With Mood?

[Jackiee]

My Turquoise Severum (I fittingly call him mood ring),
changes all the time from a dark, deep blue/black, with extremely dark orange/black eyes,
to a brilliant flourescent turquoise and green with bright red eyes,
and also changes to an orange/red/brown color on his body and his eyes yellow.

He always keeps a bright blue line along the top of his dorsal fin, and blue squiggles on his face though,
no matter what color his body and eyes change to.

A wide color range for a turquoise severum, imo.
with the red/orange coming in randomly also? maybe not.

I'm assuming this is to mood, as I've heard similar from other Severum owners,
but I was wondering if anyone actually knows what colors mean which type of mood
happy, angry, stressed, etc.


Just curious.
Anyone have an answer?

 

[hamfist]

Usually the darker a sev is, the more stressed it is. Would be interesting to see photos of the two extremes of yours !

 

[KittyKat]

A lot of fish, especially cichlids, will change colour readily. Dark usually means stressed, but I have found that some fish will happily go through the whole range in minutes, just for the sake of it and some have a different "standard mood" colour than is normal.

 

[Jackiee]

I will try to snap some photos of him when he's in his moods!

 

[KittyKat]

Was still asleep when I posted this morning.

In your case, it is most likely stress because of the space and water changes; he should improve once in the new tank.

 

[Jackiee]

Here's the color extreme's I said I would get of my sev!

 

[kaivalagi]

it's quite normal for most cichlids to vary light/dark with mood

 

[snowflake311]

Yes they change with mood a lot. Now that mine is older he only goes light color when stressed. Most of the time he is dark but he get amazing when fighting or showing he is dominate his color will be bright green with bright orange bottom fit. His eyes also get an amazing bright yellow.

Yes when sick they will turn almost black but they turn dark when breeding or showing off.

Most all cichlids change color with mood.

 

[minnnt]

My rotkeil goes light when stressed, and dark when dominating the other rotkeil. Very interesting to learn their colour patterns and behaviours when in different colours. My dominant one has bright yellow/Orange eyes, the others are a lot darker.

 

[Jackiee]

Yes, it's very interesting to watch.
He changes colors when he starts to display dominance to my blood parrot or starts to chase her.