Neon blue acara appears to be losing color

[sharky]

I bought a male neon blue acara 16 days ago and put it in my 45 gallons tank together with a pair of bolivians, clown loach, pair of boesemani rainbow fish and a pair of red rainbow fish. I feed them with freeze dried tubifex, dried mosquito larvae, JBL Color flakes, JBL Novo grano mix and Dajana waffers. I do not know the exact water parameters but I do regular water change around 20% two times a week. All other fish аre thirving, growing and have nice coloration. The Acara is eating like a pig it’s very active and it’s undoubtedly growing fast but some of the scales appear to be darkened, tail fin as well. What can be the cause of that?

[torso]

Hi

Females darken for breeding, that’s all I can tell you.

Take the water parameters for further guesses.

One general guess: all these genetic variations (“forced hybridization”) are not hardy. Someone may have a different opinion on that (see net), but I would like to see proves. It`s interesting to see that notes on websites date back to late 2013/spring 2014. Where are news since? Trade doesn’ like them either, too many complaints.

Cheers Charles

[sharky]

Thanks torso for your reply. The reason appears to be in the water. I had some serious plant melt (the reason for that are not important for this topic). I kept some of them, because I hoped they’ll grow back. Some of them did and some of them died off which caused their roots to rot and pollute the water. Acara’s coloration is like it was before. 

 

Cheers!

[Author]

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