hey,

in my 230l tank i have a few differnent africans in there.

i have 4 electric yellows , the problem is that they arnt very yellow its really washed out white.

im pretty sure that when i got them the were bright yellow but have faded. im not sure if they are male or female or if that makes a differnce.

the pH is 8.3, kh is 12dkh and gh is 14dgh

there is plenty of hidey hole ect.

i feed them novo rift and a few other green flakes.

they have been like this for ages too.

can someone please help.

hay feed them a bit of shrimp i feed my 2 males and they are bright bright and real healthy maybe its the green flakes you feed them if its not that i dont kow what it is:-)

is there a decent light on the tank

yes there is a white tube and a blue tube running the hole length of the tank. could this be too bright?

What colour is your substrate? They may be trying to blend in with a light colour in your tank. Are you sure they are definitely yellows? There are allsorts of "e yellows" out there.

If they were bright at the shop & not now, then I would say they were fed a colour up food at the store & have now returned to their original colour. Chances are yours are just a faded colour of yellow.

Why do I think that?

Electric yellows have been bred alot through only a few limited lines.

Bright lights aren't needed for Malawis, some of my tanks have a light, some don't..Also, mine are over a couple of different substracts, light & dark. All pretty much the same colour, they don't wash out easy.

I only feed mine vegie flake, with some mysis shrimp & pellets for something different. & they are a nice yellow colour.

Here is a pic of a very pale yellow, taken from a lfs.

Frenchy

omg nah mine arnt that bad mine are just white on the bottom of them.

i have a coral sand substrate. but they have been in differnent tanks with darker substrates with no change.

i didnt buy them from a shop i got given them off someone that had bred them local.

what is some good colouring food. im using jbl novo rift, novo vert and another spirilina flake.

the black marks on there fins are quite fadded too but they do flash the black somethimes

thanks for the help!

If they were bright then faded id go for food or stress.. From the sounds of it your feeding a varied diet so I would say the foods sweet, are they under any extra stress? Our yellows are all coloured up (even the blacks on their fins) and the most dominant male has the most black even though hes nowhere near the boss of the tank so I wouldn't think its stress..

Maybe (as other people have suggested) you just brought fish with bad breeding and they're just destined to be dull. We spent many months going around to peoples houses and pet shops to find our breeders and have finally found a group of females and males we want to breed from. Have yet to raise any babies from them (have only just got the females but we have 2 young spawns growing out atm) so were looking forward to seeing how the babies come out..

i dont think that they would be under any extra stress.

they have a way over filtered tank and heaps of hidey holes and good water quality.

if there was all female or males could this cause the fade? other wise then they must just be dull ones.

what is the easyest way to gaurantee the sex of them? and what is needed to make them breed as i have had them for about 1 year now with no sign of breeding, i keep reading that they easy to breed

i've heard that if you feed fish good from the start they colour better even if they have bad genes?

Haven't heard that one before I would have thought that the breeding would determine how they colour no matter what you feed them? I mean a person is as dark or light as they are no matter what you feed them.. lol

Where did you hear that Dan?

Females will generally have less black on their top fin and no (or almost none) black on their anal fins whereas males will have lots of black on all their fins..

How did the electric yellows turn out that we sold you ryanjury, they were from our first spawn so was just wondering.

They were good I think we've moved all of them on now as we found bigger breeders to breed from. Atm we have (I think) 5 big males and 5 females so didn't really need to grow any more on..

I found some info on white electric yellows.

Check it out. Does not say why they turn white.

http://www.sydneycichlid.com/content/?page_id=132

Well actually it does give reasons why they may go white. They not really going white more peachy / pale orange

Electric yellow colouration is also widely affected by diet and medications. Some processed foods have the ability to turn the fish a muddy colour whilst fish that are fed natural (carotene) colour enhancement food tend to become peach/pale orange in appearance. I have seen fish treated with Ivomec (worming medication) turn a greenish black. Colour is also affected by stress induced through “less than ideal†water conditions, bullying, change of tank or illness.

There are naturally occuring wild Electric yellows that are white and pale as there are also Blue ones

Caeruleus actually means blue in latin

Most likely the ones you have are from bad breeding as we have the same thing here in Australia

With sexing yellows i would trust the black markings on the fins as I have had yellows with jet black fins hold fry

Vent sexing is the only reliable way

Brad

i would trust the black markings on the fins

Is that meant to be wouldn't?

Frenchy