Hey guys,
This fall, i purchased a lemon jake showmale that was big and absolutuely stunning. He was in amazing condition with the most beautiful colours! When i exceeded 10 male peacock tankmates with him, he started to dim in colour, and was almost completely un coloured for the next 3 weeks. 3 weeks ago, i decided i wanted to see him as a nice beautiful showmale agin to i put him in by himself and one female in a 15g. no use.... so i decided to remove my breeder male out of my F1 colony in the 38gal and switch positions, the breeder male in the 15g (he still is and doing great for now) and the big ex-show male in the 38gal with 11 females to himself. even after 3 weeks, no use... still uncoloured. I had almost lost hope when i thought of an idea. last night i took my flowerhorn out of his 75g, and got it ready for the group of peacocks, putting in different substrates, caves, rocks, tubes etc... This moring i put the group in the 75gal with one addition... my WC lemon jake male, about 1" smaller then the showmale. I guess i found a way to trigger the colour on the male! Over the last 5 hours or so, the 2 males have been dancing around and the big guy chasing the wild male around the tank. Sure enough, the show males colour has almost fully come back to where it once was! I guess he just needed a little more room to swim and a smaller male to compete for the girls!
I am hesitating puting my breeder male into the group right now, just becuase my breeder male is the smallest male, about half of the show male, and i dont want him to lose his colour and fins to the bigger boys... I have rotated 4 males through the colony of girls and seems to work for keeping all the males fully coloured and breeding between more then one male. I sold off all of the males except the nicest one, my breeder male i currently have, the big show male, and the wc male which i will keep with the colony for fresh blood.
Just a little update! Brad

Little 3.5" Breeder Male!

Boy you really have a stunner there Brad!!

I love how bright the blue and yellow is on him!

Very nice looking peacock, Brad!

And a very interesting trial and error experiment as well.

I like it Now this should be good!

mark,

I have a lemon jake (3.5"), look really nice, but have become a butt in my 55. I paid $25 for him, but if you want to add to you 6 footer once it is said up I'd part with it for less.

Yodahorn, I'm definately interested!

However, it might be a while before I get the tank
and then I have to wait for it to cycle.

If you still have it, I'll definately buy it from you!

BTW, where did you get it?

PB you don't have to wait for your tank to cycle!! Take any sponges that you will have in the filters for the new tank and put them in a currently running tank now! Then when you get the new one all set up pop them in the filters filler up and wala, a completely cycled new tank! Just make sure you have fishies to add to keep the bacteria alive or feed it!

I got it at Sandy's petshop.

Thanks Yodahorn!

Rena, I would normally do that with the filters, but I want
to do something with the new tank for an article that I
want to submit on the forum.

I don't want to say yet what I want to do, but soon I will tell.

It's not a big deal and its been done and its being done all the time.

It will just be something to add to our articles section!

Goodie Goodie the Clap I can't wait to see what it is!!!! I'm sure it will be good!