# My new fish - Labidochromis caeruleus - Yellow Lab - 2 pics



## GaFishMan1181 (Dec 17, 2008)

Just wanted to show yall my 2 new yellow labs and ask a few questions.

I had three of these guys originally but took one back because one had dark stripes and was no where near as yellow as these two.

This is the smaller of the two. Probably 1 1/4 inches. No visable egg spot. No black anywhere on it yet. Somewhat of a white belly. Lady at the store said she thinks it is female but from what i understand it may be too early to tell. Here is the pic.










This next one is maybe a 1/10 of an inch longer and also a little thicker looking. There is one visable eggspot. It has a very faint black line starting to appear on his dorsal fin. THis one is the boss of the two. It picked the best cave and will not let the other one in it. Heres the pic.










I do have a few questions.

THese two hardly ever leave their caves. They love just to stay in there and every so often one will try to get into the other's cave and fish #2 always wins.

Is this common for yellow labs to stay in the caves alot?

Do yall have any opinions on the sex of either of these two?

How long before i will start seeing the black line on fish two get darker?

any recommendations for treats?

btw i will eventually try to get two more fish. I am shooting for either 1m 2f or 1m 3f .

thanks for looking.

p.s. they are in a 12 gallon for two weeks and then they will go in a 46 gallon with sand.


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## kevin3020 (Jun 7, 2008)

Nice labs but mine got the black fins before yours. Mbunas like to stay in caves a lot generally, but if you add another species they will usually come out. As a treat i feed them peas or romaine lettuce. 
HTH


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## gmaschke (Aug 23, 2008)

AS far as the black lines I have a batch of fry a bit over 1/4 in anthey have the black already. This is my first yellow lab clutch and I assume this to be the norm.


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## GaFishMan1181 (Dec 17, 2008)

hmm, i hope i dont have all yellow ones, they better get there black stripes. Thats two people who already said they have black lines on their fish who are smaller than mine. anyone else know if some take longer than others?


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I'll leave the dorsal discussion for others. Your labs are hiding because they are (a) new to the tank, and (b) there are only two fish in the tank. There is safety in numbers.

Labs like to be in groups of 5-6. I'd get 3 more right away.

Did you cycle by using a filter or media from another tank? If yes, you want to put enough fish in there right away to "feed" the bacteria to keep it all alive...same bioload of fish that the filter or media was supporting before.


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## walleye (Aug 20, 2007)

I see the black in the second photo. I wouldn't worry about it. I have a really nice strain of yellows and they take a while to get their black stripes. The plus is, they don't beard or get that dirty look when full grown. Usually the dom. male will have the best color. You could have a subdom male that you think is female because it wont get the heavy black stripes like a dom male. The best way to sex is to learn how to vent them. I usually wait and see who's holdding fry :wink: That's the best way to see who is female.


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## ridley25 (Jan 5, 2008)

All my Labs that have black in their dorsal, anal and pelvic fins have had so since they were 1" or less.


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## GaFishMan1181 (Dec 17, 2008)

alright well i will just wait till they get a little bigger and hopefully the black lines will come.

I am deff. going to get some more next week when the new batch comes in.

Is the male female ratio important in the labs?

How big do they get before they usually will breed?


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

If they haven't got the black in them now, they are hybrids.

I have fry at about 1/4" and the black is fully visible on all of them by that size.


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## beginnercichlidkeeper (Dec 24, 2008)

I have learned that the male yellow labs have distinct black on their bottom fins and the females do not. I have one male and three females. The male is much larger and much more pure yellow. All of the females have faint black vertical stripes, although I do not think that is a sex-determining feature. Both sexes are beginning to develop a blackish face mask.


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## cichlidaholic (Dec 7, 2005)

beginnercichlidkeeper said:


> I have learned that the male yellow labs have distinct black on their bottom fins and the females do not.


This is not true. It may be true in your case, but it doesn't apply to all yellow labs. :wink:

The ones in the pics are very likely the infamous red zebra/yellow lab hybrid that seems to be taking over the LFS these days. That's why the yellow is so "deep".


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## GaFishMan1181 (Dec 17, 2008)

ok now i am confused, i thought the ones without black striped are more pure than the other ones. are you sure these two are hybrids and maybe not morphes of the yellow lab.


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

GaFishMan1181 said:


> ok now i am confused, i thought the ones without black striped are more pure than the other ones. are you sure these two are hybrids and maybe not morphes of the yellow lab.


There are no natural morphs that have no black striping in the dorsal fin.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Stripes are horizontal, so in labs the stripe should be on the dorsal fin...a complete black stripe on the dorsal is desirable.

Bars are vertical, so in labs they refer to dark bars on the yellow body. It's not so much that barring makes them hybrid or less pure...it is that people prefer the clean yellow body.

To the OP who asked about the blue anal fin...I believe that is a good thing. When I was considering an order of yellow labs from one of the most respected online vendors on the site, the owner mentioned that his labs had this as a selling point.


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## TrashmanNYC (Dec 10, 2007)

DJRansome said:


> Bars are vertical, so in labs they refer to dark bars on the yellow body. It's not so much that barring makes them hybrid or less pure...it is that people prefer the clean yellow body.
> .


so bars are normal in some?


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

People claim they have seen wild caught labs with barring. It is considered poor breeding, but not a sign of hybridization. No one claims they have seen wild caught labs without the black dorsal. Lack of dorsal stripe is considered a sign of a lab/estherae hybrid.


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## klumsyninja (Aug 14, 2008)

I have 8 verified 1st gen. Lab. Caeruleus the parents *are* WC and these little guys (2.5"?) bar up from time to time. Most of them have prominent dorsal lines too. Sometimes they beard up too... It just seems to depend on the day with their coloring.. amazing fish though. 
SO happy i picked them up! 
Most of the time though, they are a nice clean yellow, not dark yellow but a gentle natural lemon yellow with black dorsal and anal and a couple have egg spots that I've noticed... Beautiful.


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## bac3492 (Jul 25, 2008)

I have yellow labs ranging from 1" to 1 1/4.

The most dominant 3 have really dark barring on all 3 sets of fins, the smaller and less dominant have more faint black on their fins although on two the anal fin doesnt have visible black.

I would disagree with fogelhund that they are hybrids simply because the black isnt complete/ visible at 1/4 inch. I would say its more of a genetic thing, through line breeding the black starts to show earlier or later.

might be an interesting experiment, get two groups of WC and depending on the parents genes see how soon the black fins on f1 fry show up.


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## JALOOS (Sep 6, 2008)

I have about 12 labs all started from an original pairing. The original dom male and the female both have the black striping and are very deep yellow in color. That being said the color and markings vary alot in the offspring from pale yellow allmost white to striking yeallow, from no stripe to pronounced stripes. I think alot of the coloring has to do with their position in the pecking order and water conditions. As stated elsewhere a dom male will look more vibrant than less dom males who are trying to fit in and hide out posing as a female to avoid conflict. They are definatly more comfortable in a group and tend to hide out alot less when there is no action around the tank.

Just a few observations I have made.


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## khaki (Jan 12, 2008)

It looks like your yellow labs are red zebra/yellow lab hybrid. They have lots of those at the lfs. Your yellow labs are hiding a lot because your tank isnt fully stock. The more fish the more they come out because they feel like getting food is a competition to them.

F2 Yellow labs.

*Male*

































*These two are Females*



















hope this help ya. Lucky me that none of my females have egg spot..so it is easy for me to sex them. How do I know they are female? all of them have hold for me. But this doesnt mean that all females DONT have egg spot.


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## wheatbackdigger (May 11, 2008)

To the OP, if your fish is 1 1/4" long and hasn't started to develop black on its fins, it most likely isn't pure. Most of the newborn fry I've seen start developing black by two weeks


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## GaFishMan1181 (Dec 17, 2008)

my yellow labs get more black on their fins every day. only thing i can think of is because there were like 20 labs in one aquarium and i was trying to get females i picked the ones with less black, but they could of been sub dom males and now that there are no bigger fish than them they are starting to show the black//

i dont know though maybe they are hybrids , but if they are 2 of them deff are 99% yellow lab because they are starting to look like the ones in khaki's post.


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

GaFishMan1181 said:


> my yellow labs get more black on their fins every day. only thing i can think of is because there were like 20 labs in one aquarium and i was trying to get females i picked the ones with less black, but they could of been sub dom males and now that there are no bigger fish than them they are starting to show the black//
> 
> i dont know though maybe they are hybrids , but if they are 2 of them deff are 99% yellow lab because they are starting to look like the ones in khaki's post.


If they came from the same source... they are likely the same... When you have hybrids, some will look like one parent, some will look like the other, and many somewhere in between.


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## Afishionado (Jun 6, 2006)

Vertical barring may come and go in response to stress. In fish supposedly line bred for clean yellow body colour, barring should not be very evident all the time - if it is then the fish is either under constant stress, poorly bred, or a hybrid.

As for the black stripes in the fins, I've got a spawn of 22 growing out at the moment that are at about the 1 1/4" mark. Some have already developed very nice black in the fins, and with some it is still developing, but every one has the black in the fins to some degree.


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## CICHLUDED (Aug 4, 2006)

The link below has pics of some yellow lab fry that I have raisedâ€¦
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/view ... highlight=

In my experience they start showing the black in their dorsal shortly after they are released.


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## khaki (Jan 12, 2008)

Yes, i agree...all my yellow labs fry start having black dorsal when they are about half an inch or even less! if your labs havent got their black on the dorsal yet and they are an inch...i dont think they are pure


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## GaFishMan1181 (Dec 17, 2008)

oh well if mine are hybrid i aint goin to get rid of them, they are awsome to me, i just will not sell them or give their fry away... i hope my S. fryeri is hungry for some baby labs...mmm good.


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## walleye (Aug 20, 2007)

If they are getting black stripes, they are labs. I'm growing some labs out with some saulosi. The saulosi are over 2.5" and the labs are about 1.25-1.5" The labs have light stripes. The parents of the fry are just fine. You may end up with a cleaner lab that doesn't beard up like others do. My sub-dom male that gets chased around the tank has no bearding or stress bars on his sides. I still think alot of the color quality comes from line breeding.


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## khaki (Jan 12, 2008)

*walleye*
that isnt true..your statement "If they are getting black stripes, they are labs."


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## football mom (Feb 19, 2006)

I'v kept labs from different sources, and raised a few broods for several years. Some do seem to develop the black dorsal fin stripe earlier than others. And the barring in my experience is a stress thing. I gave away a 3 1/2 inch fish to a friend of mine because it always showed bars and a grey "beard". I saw the fish last weekend, it is about 4 1/2 inches now in her tank and it's beautiful, nice clear yellow with lovely black on the fins. (I want it back, lol) Apparently it is a happier fish in her tank.


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