# Electric Blue Ahli worrying me...



## Eraserhead (Feb 1, 2007)

Hi guys, 

Among others, I have an Electric Blue Ahli that I have had since I set up my tank last November. The tank is 72 gal canister filtered, planted, lots of sandstone rocks. Chems are: 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite, 8.4 ph, 40 Nitrate. I do 30% water changes at least every other week, and keep the tank extremely clean (I'm OCD about it)

Everythins has been fine with this Electric Blue Ahli, I raised him since he was a tiny little thing. I was amazed at how beautiful he had become. Now something strange is going on and I have no clue what it could be about. Could be totally natural, but indulge me if you would...

Here is a picture I took of him about 2 weeks ago:









Looking good there. However, he has started to get strange black markings on one side that seem to follow his tiger color bands:









His other side seems largely unaffected, however notice the symmetrical black markings on his ventral fins:









In this photo, you get the full spread (albeit blurry):









Here's a close-up of the markings:









Anybody have any clue what this could be? Do I need to get him into quarantine, like, immediately? It's freaking me out. I have a fish in the hospital tank already, he got the tar beaten out of him this week, so he's healing with some Melafix and Pimafix. This change has come about completely within the last 2 1/2 to 3 days.

Any thought? I'm worried!! 
Thanks everyone!

Bobby

BTW, my avatar is a pic of my beastly Red Devil. I love him.


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## Eraserhead (Feb 1, 2007)

I might also add, "he" has been eating and acting completely normally. Months ago he was the tank punching bag, but that title has long been since passed on to my albino redfin, and as of late there doesn't seem to be a specific wuss of the tank. The agression is well spread out.


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## Osiris (Jan 18, 2005)

That is quite bizarre, could be tumors, or just from stress related at times. Very well depending where you got it, could just be abad strain of genes.


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## Eraserhead (Feb 1, 2007)

Osiris said:


> That is quite bizarre, could be tumors, or just from stress related at times. Very well depending where you got it, could just be abad strain of genes.




Isn't it wild??? He used to get chased around the tank a lot, but for the past several month he has been holding his own very well. He doesn't have any real reason to get stressed, and while he does shift his color a little bit depending on what's going on in the tank, these black marks never change. It's so weird, they appeared over the period of about three days. They haven't gotten any bigger in the last 24 hours though. I hope it's nothing serious, I love that little guy  I doubt that is was a problem with the place I got him, I ordered him from Petsolutions.com. But who knows, maybe it is weird genes. I got him when he was about an inch long and totally boring looking. Then he went through some beautiful color changing phases, and now he is just totally cool looking. Here is a picture of one color phase he went through for a couple weeks (this has been months ago though), maybe this can offer a clue to what is going on now:


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## Osiris (Jan 18, 2005)

No he isn't a wild, a wild of that variant if u could find one, would cost some hefty bucks around $100 i believe.

Their stock is likely that of just farmed bred inbred which would cause the discolorations like that. 

We are currently breeding these, and have lots of gorgous males not in bred with excellence coloration.


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## Eraserhead (Feb 1, 2007)

Osiris said:


> No he isn't a wild, a wild of that variant if u could find one, would cost some hefty bucks around $100 i believe.
> 
> 
> > Oh I didn't mean the fish, I just meant the situation itself. He's still doing just fine, seems totally normal, although the weird markings are still there. It looked like he was starting to get a streak on his other side too, but it really hasn't developed yet.


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## shade2dope (Jan 21, 2007)

my fish is doing some crazy color changes too not a ali... but it just got done matting and there no males other males in tank so i think hes dulling up some iam getting another femake to through in there and see what happens


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## Eraserhead (Feb 1, 2007)

shade2dope said:


> my fish is doing some crazy color changes too not a ali... but it just got done matting and there no males other males in tank so i think hes dulling up some iam getting another femake to through in there and see what happens



You know what's weird, is now the black has compeltely gone away. It slowly started fading, and now it's gone. Who frickin' knows!! Fish are so weird sometimes


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