Black Skirt Tetras lose colour?

[ameliaaahx]

I have heard that Black Skirt tetras lose the lovely black colouration on their "skirt" when they mature.

True or false?

[escamosa]

I really can't say that it's impossible, but I never really had any problems with the colour changing as my Black Skirts matured. I did notice that the colour changed quite a lot if something was bothering them. Like, if I was being a bit slack, or wasn't home to keep up with the water changes enough, the skirts would turn quite pale. And I remember when I first started to keep them, I could only get four to start with, and the skirts were a little pale, until I added the next four to build up their school. After I built the school up, they looked great!

[Lady Hobbs]

I have black skirts now 7 years old and they look like they did the day I got them.

[ameliaaahx]

Huh. Interesting. I Google's it and several sites including this one stated that they lose the dark juvenile colours when they mature and the skirt is the same colour as the rest of the body. I guess it depends on the fish.

[Brhino]

mine have faded a bit. The runts are the ones that are still the darkest. It's not like they've totally lost their color, it's just they're more like dark grey than black now.