EBJD Color Question

[Bengal]

Hello all.

I recently purchased an EBJD from my LFS. Most beautiful fish I have ever seen so I had to have him. I brought him home and put him in a fully cycled 55 gallon tank all by himself. The water perameters are about perfect. The tank has a nice rock piece that provides lots of places to hide and there are some silk plants.

Here is my question. He's been very pale-white since I brought him home. His head is blue but even it is a bit pale. I know these fish can pale themselves when stressed or spooked. But how bad does the gravel color effect the color of the fish? The gravel is white. I'm wondering if this has something to do with the lack of color. Only thing is the LFS had him in a tank with white gravel and he was very blue.

Does it take a while for them to mellow out? He's eating and swimming around and acts fine. He comes to the front of the tank to check me out when I'm looking for him. I'd just like him to be the most blue he can be.

So if I need to ad different color rock, do I just pour some on top? Any color ideas?

And I want to get an algae eater for his tank. Any suggestions? I was thinking of going with a bristlenosed pleco.

This is going to be a one fish tank. I don't plan on this being a community tank. Just the EBJD and an algae eater.

Sorry to be so wordy. Wonderful forum you have here.

[Algenco]

most likely stress, if the color doesn't return to normal in a week, you might want to try a darker substrate

[Bengal]

I wondered if it might be a time thing. I brought him home last Sunday so he's been here 4 days now. I just didn't know how long the acclimation period might be.

[Oscar_freak12321]

It might take a while, it might not. As soon as it's acclimated, it should color right up for you.

[Bengal]

I took a picture of him a bit ago. Forgive my poor camera skills. I'm not sure it's very representitive of his color but you can somewhat see how he's bleached.

[Only Registered Users Can See Links.]

[Crispy]

fish will wash their colors out to camoflage with the gravel.... if he's still pale in 6 weeks, change your substrate to a darker color.

[oscar5]

idk anything about JDs but i think the fish looks good!

[Wild Turkey]

most likely stress, if the color doesn't return to normal in a week, you might want to try a darker substrate

:goodpost:

[thatcichlidguy]

Agree that stress is a part , but the light substrate's at least partially responsible too. A darker color would help. Other than that , he looks good!

[sandypants]

Dif. fish but it took a solid week for my GBR to finally show is colors and sometimes when I walk up to feed them his colors will fade when he sees movement around the tank. Looks like a beautiful fish though!

[Bengal]

Thanks for the kind words guys! I love this fish.

Question though. Say I wanted to go to a darker substrate in the future. How would you guys do that? Would you pour some on top and leave the white underneath? Remove ALL the white rock and refill with darker? Half and half?

[thatcichlidguy]

Really that's a matter of taste but for me I'd change all of it while I'm in there. If you have another tank, I'd transfer the fish to it while you do this since it's a major operation and would be very stressfull on the fish. It's still stressfull to move them around but not as bad as leaving them in the tank while you remove and replace the substrate.

If you don't have another tank you can still move the fish to a plastic storage bin filled with tank water (or 50/50 tank and fresh dechlor'd tap) filled high enough to allow you to run your filter on it while you revamp the tank. Even without the filter , he'll be good in there for a few hours.

[skwestle]

Nice EB sometimes JDs will take up to a month to get comfortable with new surroundings. I would let it settle in for awhile and maybe put some barbs or something in the tank for it

[marksuttonjr]

My EB didn't lose any color when I got him. He went from a tank with black gravel to a tank with tan/brown gravel. He also went from having 5 other EB in a 10 to being with 11 BG in a 50. He does look kinda pale every morning when the lights come on, but colors up rather nicely in 10-15 min. I plan on getting rid of most of my BGJD, but want the EB I have and another EB to pair up with BGJD first.

My advice is to get him a tank mate or 2. I had my BGJD's with a school of Tiger Barbs for a while, and they did well together. You will eventualy NEED a few bottom feeders.