Dominance question

[Andrew_B]

So a couple months back I snagged a nice group of Yellow blaze. At the start, I thought I had 1male, 5 females since only one was blue. I'm looking at them now, and its looking more like 4male, 2 female. The males are larger with more in terms of displayed fins but show no color at all. They have a slight blue shimmer when the light hits them the right way. Anyway, I moved a couple of the larger sub dom males to other tanks (fry tanks) and after a few days, still showing no color.

Question - is it possible for a male to be subdom long enough to permanently lose its color, or just have no interest in being dominant?

[barrettsline]

A sub will show a minimal amount of color, so as not to cause aggression from your dominant male. He will show color when he tries to become the dominant male. If your looking to curve this move everything in the tank around. This removes know territories and thus male dominance is diminished but not eliminated.

[eklikewhoa]

I've seen some males that never color up as nice as the dominant males even when the dom. is removed.

[Andrew_B]

I moved the extra males into other tanks, where they are the biggest fish by 2-3". In hopes they get some color. I'm not trying to get them back in the breeding group. Just odd, after a few days in these tanks, nothing has changed color wise. They have zero competition

[Andrew_B]

Yeha, I did that at first. I moved the main male into another tank for a few days to see what would happen. Maybe these guys were submissive for so long, they have no intentions of being dominant? No idea.

[rmalford]

I've had a few fish lose their color and I moved them to a different tank and got tired of waiting for them to color up.

*flush*

Just kidding

[76dragon]

Its gonna take more than a few days. They gonna bulk up then when they think they have a chance to be dominate, they will begin to show color. Its gonna take more than a couple of days

[Andrew_B]

Im not still 100% that their males, but Im confident that they are. Same body shape as my main male and as large. Also, the two females are holding for the second time right now. If others were females, they would have held as well. But its only the same 2

[Andrew_B]

I'll keep them in their separate tanks for a few weeks to see what happens. Guess Im just used to moving around Vic males and having them fire up instantly

[moganman]

I have a bunch of female demasoni and not all of the females play around. I don't think its safe to assume they are males just because they aren't breeding. Maybe you should try venting.