Hongi Coloration

[mikemac58]

I have a group of five Hongi purchased from a LFS. Gender is TBD, but the largest at 2.5 inches seems to be a male and shows the most color, but not the brilliant pale blue base that you see on the internet. Base is a darker lavendar. Other than that barring and red top look nice. Three of the others have darker base and barring. Smallest has dark base, no barring.

Is the darker base a function of the fish genitics/type/location, the age/size of fish, lighting (4 ft. Double Bright Marineland LED) black back glass, black substrate with some light sand mixed in with extensive light colored dead live rock background or some combination of all of these factors? My Red Zebra's and Yellow Labs look great, they "pop" big time!

 

[cichlidaddicted]

How long have you had them? I have tried every combo of background/gravel colors with my africans. Ime the darker colors around the fish either made them appear darker or they actually became darker to match their surroundings. Also juvenile fish almost always look drastically different from adults. I have seen silver fish turn black, yellow fish turn blue....ect. havnt kept juvenile hongi so I can't give you direct experience with them just general observations.

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[mikemac58]

I have had the Hongi for about a month now. I threw on an old light to brighten thinks up a bit to see if it makes any difference in the Hongi colors.

 

[chriscoli]

My Hongi were always a dark lavender to lavender/brown except for the dominant male who was sometimes a light lavender with vertical stripes. Mine were not the line-bred Red Tops, though.