# how long for saulosi transition?



## malawimix (Oct 8, 2008)

is there an average age or time it takes for saulosi males to color up? I have two that are 3 inches long and have been pale yellow/gray forever and when they get excited they show bars but not the blue/black coloration I'm waiting for. I've had them for 2-3 months and they were suposed to be 4 months when I got them.

another question from a newbie...if the saulosi "display" and shake in front of others are they males or do young females do this also? I keep getting a few more hoping to find some females but 6 of the 7 I've taken home have begun to stripe up a bit, get dark edges on fins, and display in front of others.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Both males and females do the display thing.

If you have multiple males in a tank they may be keeping each other from coloring up. Starting taking suspected males out one by one and the remaining male may turn bright blue overnight!

They are infamous for being male-heavy.


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## chris350 (Jul 9, 2008)

DJRansome said:


> Both males and females do the display thing.
> 
> If you have multiple males in a tank they may be keeping each other from coloring up. Starting taking suspected males out one by one and the remaining male may turn bright blue overnight!
> 
> They are infamous for being male-heavy.


male-heavy?

I have a set of salousi's too. about 9 of them. all too small to color up. so you saying that the male wont change blue if there is anothe male present? i thought one will be dominant and the other males...well they will just be mellow yellow....if i read around the internet...thats what i know

saulosi's fully mature sexually i believe when they are more than 7 months old....


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## xalow (May 10, 2007)

*DJRansome's* information is exactly what I have experienced. I have two Saulosi males and though always the same size one of them didn't color up until a year after the slightly bigger one.


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## trigger (Sep 6, 2002)

No timeframe, but I love this picture I found once:


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## chapman76 (Jun 30, 2004)

DJRansome said:


> Both males and females do the display thing.
> 
> If you have multiple males in a tank they may be keeping each other from coloring up. Starting taking suspected males out one by one and the remaining male may turn bright blue overnight!
> 
> They are infamous for being male-heavy.


That was never my experience. I've grown out groups of 60+ and I've had males fully color by 1 1/2". The smaller the group, the longer it will take for the males to turn though. I do agree with that much. I'm trying to remember my first batch and how long it took. I'll see if I can find any notes in my notebook.

Males will slightly lighten in color before they start the transformation. Then you see the barring start to come out.


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## Gibbs (Apr 21, 2008)

Atleast 1 fish, the dominant male will always color up by atleast 1.5 inch. Once dominance has been established a second or even a third male can color up but will not be as vibrant as the first.
It is always hard to keep tabs on the holding females because they all look the same, as it is just as hard to spot disguised males


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## malawimix (Oct 8, 2008)

Gibbs said:


> Atleast 1 fish, the dominant male will always color up by atleast 1.5 inch. Once dominance has been established a second or even a third male can color up but will not be as vibrant as the first.
> It is always hard to keep tabs on the holding females because they all look the same, as it is just as hard to spot disguised males


I got two of them at 1.5-2 inches and they were still yellow. now they are at least 3 inches and only to about the 2nd or 3rd step in the pics above...always pale, sometimes barred. I added 3 more yellow 1.5 inchers hoping for females and they all began to bar up and display but are still quite yellow. Then I added two more 1 inchers and they display and bar up. ARRRG! I hope to end up with a few females someday and males that will color up.
I saw a male at the LFS which was slightly smaller than my largest two and he is fully colored.

I got my first two from a private party who also had yellow labs, and kennyi breeding in the same tank so I wondered if mine could be a cross but the LFS guy said crosses would be brown and not to worry. any comments on that?


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## malawimix (Oct 8, 2008)

here are some pics of one of them....as you'll see he is nearly as large as my mature cyno. afra but still not colored. he started out yellow and went pale. possible kennyi mix?? any comments?


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## plow (Feb 19, 2008)

I'm not sure he looks like a saulosi. ? Hard to tell from photos though with different light.

My saulosi females are much more yellow, your "yellow" looks quite orange imo. The barring also doesn't seem to have enough black in it, even if these are still in transition from juvi's. The shape of the front of the body also looks too rounded, almost yellow lab shaped. Mine are slimmer and longer from face to tail, not so tall in the front part of the body.

The pictures put up by trigger are how a saulosi should look, I reckon they are spot on. The colours are exactly like mine.

My single male coloured up while quite small, he was with 3 females and transition took about a month or two, I would say he was coloured up at 6 to 8 months?

just my opinion, I could be wrong, hope this helps.


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## malawimix (Oct 8, 2008)

the other yellow fish in the top pic are young saulsi, in the middle pic is a yellow lab, in the bttom pic is a saulosi and a tangerene..metriaclima estherae, not sure on that spelling, still new at this.
my camera flash gives him more of a bluish tint than appears to the naked eye.

the saulosi in question was spawned in a tank of saulosi, kennyi, and yellow labs; that's why I wondered if he could be a mix of something. I'll just hang on to him for a while and see what he does as compared with the other young ones I have growing.

thank you all for your input!


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## plow (Feb 19, 2008)

malawimix said:


> the other yellow fish in the top pic are young saulsi, in the middle pic is a yellow lab, in the bttom pic is a saulosi and a tangerene..metriaclima estherae,


yeah i was gonna ask you that, if those fish were sisters to this male, cos they look very similar, but not like my saulosis..

same as I said in my previous post with these females, not yellow enough, too much orange and the shape isn't really right either.

scroll down on this link there is a good phtoto of a female saulosi

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl= ... S%26sa%3DN

try this aswell
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl= ... S%26sa%3DN


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## Gibbs (Apr 21, 2008)

Here is a short vid of my Saulosi tank. Quality is bit poor, don't mind my son talking to himself in the background :lol:

http://s293.photobucket.com/albums/mm77/gibbs_023/?action=view&current=Video003.flv


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## chapman76 (Jun 30, 2004)

Plow,

I disagree with most of what you've said. His males look like a typical male that is about 3rd or so in the dominance chain. I've had up to 6 adult males in one tank and males down the bottom of the dominance chain look quite similar to that. A washed out light blue color with barely visible barring. I don't see any inverted barring or merging barring. No incomplete bars. No odd colors. Nothing to tell me this isn't a pure saulosi.

As far as the color of the females go. That is a myth or something started by someone about them having to be more yellow. I've seen WC females that are very yellow and some that are very orange. I prefer the more orange strain.










That is one of my females from my old breeding group. She's pretty darn orange I'd say in the picture and she was more orange in person. I'm not sure if she was one of my WC or F1 females. I believe she was an F1.










That is a head on shot of one of my males with a WC female. She is pretty orange too. It can vary. Shades of yellow/orange isn't a good way to determine purity.


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## plow (Feb 19, 2008)

fair enough, I was just comparing them to mine.

Nice male you have btw.. :thumb:


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## chapman76 (Jun 30, 2004)

He was. Sold the group off years ago. I raised saulosi almost exclusively for 6 years and about 8 years total. It was just time to change. I think a guy in Nebraska or Oklahoma has them now.

Understandable about comparing to experiences, that's really the only way we should do it. Never been a fan of "Well, this person said ....". Unless you've tried it or really trust the person you've heard it from, I don't generally pass that info out.


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## chris350 (Jul 9, 2008)

I say just give it more time. It wouldn't hurt.


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## malawimix (Oct 8, 2008)

do females ever show barring, or more specifically dark barring? I don't see much if any of that on any of the pics of females on here so far. Everything I have flashes some degree of darker barring and dark edge to the fins when displaying in front of eachother. I just might have a half a dozen males :?


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## Gibbs (Apr 21, 2008)

My females will show slight barring when holding, but thats as far as it goes. It's a faint black that shows. Other then that they are a deep strong yellow
I some how scored 3 males and 12 females, but im sure there is a male or 2 in amoungst the girls somewhere, but there isn't a single speck on any of them.


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## chapman76 (Jun 30, 2004)

Only when they're larger and the dominant female. I've had a single female have very dark barring when she held and when she was showing off. 90% of the time she was just orange/yellow color.


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## plow (Feb 19, 2008)

Malawimix, keep us posted on these fish, Im really curious to see how these colourations turn out, and if in fact the fish in your photo is a pure saulosi. I might learn something.


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## malawimix (Oct 8, 2008)

ok will do,
I traded off one of the largest ones hoping the other would color up but it had no effect on the remaining one. I am just going to wait it out with the rest of these and see what comes.

I got a PM suggesting the possibility that my cyno. afra cobue male may be seen as the dominant one in the tank by these saulosi...they look somewhat similar...and maybe that's why they didn't color up. That could be some of it...the saulosi did have ever so slightly better color before I introduced the cobue a month ago. However, the saulosi are about 3 inches and probably should have colored up before the cobue entered the picture too.

I have "saulosi" from 3 sources now and am eager to see what the younger ones do. Will they color up normally, proving there is something fishy with my first ones or will they all fade as well? I've had them in both of my tanks...55 with older light (not much blue in it) and in my 45 (now used as grow out tank) which has quite a lot of blue in the light but no real difference in coloration noticed in the saulosi.


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## malawimix (Oct 8, 2008)

update...

male saulosi still not very well colored but is obviously sub to my cyno. afra cobue male. 
male saulosi has been coloring up a little better and chasing and enticing a smaller yellow one for the last day or so that at times seemed to bar up and have black edges on her fins (I thought it would turn out to be a he). Now SHE is holding. I guess I've got to wait and see if now after a spawn the male starts feeling his oats and colors up better.

When I got the yellow ones a month ago they said hopefully in 4-6 months they would mate up with my boy. They're about 2 inches but I guess that's big enough to mate up.


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## chapman76 (Jun 30, 2004)

Yes, that is plenty large enough. I've had 1 1/4" females hold.










Wasn't even looking for a holding female in my fry tank.


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## malawimix (Oct 8, 2008)

I'm now thinking I may have to keep my cyno. afra cobue and my saulosi in different tanks for my saulosi to color up. I traded off one of the two largest males a week or so ago and kept one. The one I traded off is still at the LFS and is the largest one in the tank. He has colored up significanly in the last week being king of the hill there. Much better than the one I kept home with my cobue. When I first brought it to the LFS they were not sure it was a saulosi because he was so pale with no bars but today they said he definately is saulosi and he is coloring up nicely. I'd say he is within a few stages of complete (in the chart shown higher up in this thread).

Decisions, decisions! Now do I turn my 45 fry grow out tank into another community tank to keep my saulosi and cobue seperate? In doing so I would have to turn them both into colony tanks, providing lots of cover for the fry to survive as I only have one other tank...just a 10 gal maternity tank.

I picked up some java moss while at the shop today and hope to grow a bunch of it in the tanks for cover whether or not I turn them into colony tanks. I just hope it survives....they say it grows fast and has no special needs. My yellow labs and the male cobue have been chomping away at it so much that I grabbed some out and tossed it in my 10 gal maternity tank and hope I can grow it there and add to larger tanks as needed. Maybe they were just starved for vegitation; I have no other live plants and up until today had no spiulina flakes either. My flakes had spirulina in them but it was a ways down the ingredient list. Today at the shop I got spirulina flakes too so hopefully they will fill up on those and leave the moss to grow a bit.


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## bccromer (Apr 13, 2004)

If you are planning to sell the fry then a species only take is the only real way to go to ensure you don't get hybrids, especially considering that the saulosi and afra male look very similar.


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