# Pale Cichlid



## MarcusDee27 (Mar 9, 2009)

Hey folks, well, I had such a great response and advice from my first post - here's another. I have a 55 gal with five yellow labs. I have had em about a month now - and its quite apparent that I have at least two females, maybe three. One of my females has turned quite pale, almost white, while the rest of the fish have remained a vibrant yellow. They all seem to be thriving and doing quite well. The "paley" one doesn't seem to be getting picked on, singled out, or chased more than the others by the males. I have no idea what brought this on. I am currently feeding them floating flakes - not the greatest brand - but they enjoy it and even breach the surface when I feed them! So cool! I feed them twice daily. Anyone have any ideas why Paley is so pale? I have heard food, ph, etc - any help would be great!


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## CICHthis (Oct 10, 2008)

It could many things. Try to weed them out. Do a water change, change their food ( ever try NLS pellets ), check water parameters, check temperature, stress from being chased more than the others... Do one and see what happens. GL


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## Shattered (Feb 13, 2008)

Would it help to transfer Paley to another holding or quarantine tank till you figure it out?


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## Cory (May 2, 2008)

If the fish is not sick then moving it to an iso tank would stress it out even more and make the situation worse. It sounds like a stress issue although without seeing the tank and the fish I couldn't tell you what is causing it. Lower quality yellow labs sometimes appear whiteish or have white undersides but since this is a transformation that's probably not the case or at least not the main thing. I'd try switching food to NLS as it could be a dietary deficiency in which case you will start to see it in all of the fish eventually. If you're just feeding flakes then that is most likely the problem as they do not come close to fulfilling a fish's nutritional needs. If you're not keeping up on water changes in addition to maintaining proper biological filtration, that is also something to look into. 

Otherwise, it's an illness but if you haven't introduced any new fish recently, and the fish doesn't seem lethargic and is not behaving oddly that is unlikely to be the problem.


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## Windowlicka (Mar 5, 2008)

It's not unusual to see white labidochromis Caeruleus - much depends on either the origin of the parents in the lake (which don't forget is quite vast), and also that the breeding of them can be a little less than 'selective' as Cory mentions. If she's otherwise in as good health as you suggest, it sounds like she's absolutely normal!

FYI: Example of a white lab:

http://www.cichlidlovers.com/l_ca_white.htm


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## Cory (May 2, 2008)

According to a friend of mine, all yellow labs originate from the white ones also known as Labidochromis Caerulus Nkhata Bay but I don't have any corroboration on that .


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