P. Pulcher color variations?

["Sandy Erickson" <sandy00@earthlink.net>]

Hi everyone...  I recently joined this group and am really enjoying the
exchange of information.  Thanks so much for your informative responses to
my newbie questions and your patience with my questions!

My P. pulcher male/female are still demonstrating some mating behaviour but
no spawn yet.  I'm just going to be patient and see what happens over the
next few months.

One thing I'm kind of curious about is that my female seems to be changing
color quite a bit.  Within the course of a day, she'll get redder in her
belly (it appears to me that she's darkest when she's coming out of her cave
or if the lights have been off for a while.)  Is this changing of colors
pretty common?  I've seen a lot of posts about cichlids "coloring up" and am
just wondering how one judges whether or not spawning is likely to occur
when the color seems to vary significantly day-to-day.  This evening when I
got home, she seemed very dark - almost purplish red but when I looked at
her later, she seemed quite a bit paler.  When the pair is about to spawn is
there a difference in her girth that accompanies the color change? Are there
other indicators that you look for?

I'm just very curious how y'all seem to know when spawning is likely to
occur... (BTW, I'm new to these fish and they are absolutely fascinating.)

Sandy




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