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Hi, i have a few zaire kapampa masked extend to the cheek area after i transfer them to another tank 220gallon total 5 pieces of 6 inches. Anyone experience this before? What it recover?






Lastly anyone disagree that they are kapampa? Thank you so much.

I see that all the time in Fronts, they will darken up like that when stressed out from a move, but there are other things that cause that. If you moved them into a darker tank, what I mean is that if the background and substract are darker than they might darken up. Some colony's take time to settle in a new tank and might show the full face mask for a while until they relax. I also notice that if add more fish to the colony some might show a face mask for a while. I have a rather large male that gets spooked easy and took about 3-4 months to relax.

I wouldn't worry about the full face mask if you only changed tanks on them they are most likely just getting use to the surroundings and need time to get their color back.

Thank you very much.

Darkening can be a lot of things besides stress, including a dominance display, sign of spawning imminent, darker tank like mentioned above, etc. In fact, some individuals can turn nearly all black and have nothing to do with stress.

As long as they're eating, out swimming around, not breathing fast, etc, doesn't look to me like much to worry about.

Thats alot of cheek patch.
As stated frontosa will change with mood, that is what chromatophores do.
I have seen Zaire lose the mask completely.
Not seen one get that much of a cheek patch, but pretty close.

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Can i say that you suspect they aren't Kapampa? I have few wild one before, i had also never seen that much cheek patch too. What is you guess tr6?

I'd think that they would have to get some of their mask back before one can decide if they are Kapampa. If you own them and question if they are Kapampa then no one will be able to tell you what Zaire variant they are. All anyone can tell you is if they are Zaire or not. I have got colony's in of Zaire that have a full face mask for a little while until they adjust. It is always possible that your colony is a crossbreed or not Zaire if you didn't buy from a known importer or breeder. Being where you live I'm not sure of what you have available.

Do you have pics of them before you moved them and got them stressed out?

Its alot of cheek patch.
A kigoma is famous for that patch, but if your fish was crossed with kigoma it usually would have some gold in the dorsal area, and extra or at least messed up stripes.

I have seen some Zambian's with a bit of a cheek patch, so perhaps it could have some Zambian in them.

I'm not saying the fish are crossed with anything, the picture does not show as a typical Kapampa or Zaire, anything is possible so they could be pure.

Get us a picture when they are settled.
How a fish looks when it is stressed or having undergone a change in environments is not the most accurate.

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Any type of stress can cause color to change in a front. Water changes, moving, other fish, lights etc.

ok will let them stable down first.