Hi all. Not sure if this should go under the creature ID forum but as it is a cichlid I will try here. I'm not sure of the species of a couple of my fish so have been going through cichlid-forum.com to try and match them.

One of my earliest pairs were what I thought to be yellow labs, and whilst the female still remains a very bright yellow (see attached picture of her holding), the male seems to have gone from yellow to a pink haze to a kind of purple blue stripe. I've attached two pictures - one as a juvenile (with black edges on the fins), and one of how he looks today.

Do they normally go through this colour change? Is it indeed a pair of yellow labs (labidochromis caeruleus) or something different / mixed?

Any help appreciated!

sorry, the pictures don't seem to have loaded - here is the female again...

the male as a juvenile...

...and the male as he is now (well, the picture was taken around christmas time but he is still the same colour)

i can certainly say its not a yellow lab lol sorry cant help more then that but the male labs stay yellow with pronounced black markings somebody will be on later on in the day that can id him for you but its late naw so not menny people on

pic one does not look like a yellow lab, due to mouth positioning,
pic two shows th proper colouration of a lions copve labidochromis caeruleus but i'm still not happy with the mouth looks more like a metraclima
pic 3 def not a lab. been searching but can't id as yet.

Where did you get the fish?
What were they labelled as and was there more than one species in the tank?

thanks both - i bought them at Almondsbury Garden Centre which is just outside of Bristol (near Cribbs Causeway for those of you who have visited that behemoth!).

Unfortunately it was getting on for a year ago and I can't remember for sure what the tank was labelled as, and there were about 3-4 different species in there. It was definitely some combination of golden/yellow lab/cichlid.

Incidently, the orange one you can just see the top of in the first pic is also a metriaclima (i think!) and the shape is very similar. I'll have a look down that route as well.

Thats always an issue with mixed mbuna in a tank, it can be hard to be 100% on which species they'll pull out.
It also lends to my theory that perhaps your fish is a hybrid.
Tim

i was in an lfs the other day and saw some fish which looked exactly like these, called pseudotropheus saulosi. I looked in cichlid-forum and the male does indeed start yellow and change to a bluey colour. everything else looks about right so i am going to go with that...!