discoioration of my flower horn

Question
My fish (FLOWER HORN) has LOST HER COLOR n is APPERARING PALE since 2days.i changed 30% of the water, after which it looked normal for may be 10hrs n later appeared pale. i do not find much difference in her movements n activities( not too sure on this) but the physical appearance, the color of it is showing a prominent n remarkable difference. Please do reply.

Answer
Hello Sumrah Saqib,

I received your question, tonight, in the question pool. This means it probably sat awhile, unanswered, in another expert's box and they gave it to everyone else to answer.  This might mean it's outside their expertise, or they are on a vacation.

Either way, I received it tonight and it was answered immediately, so please remember the late answer isn't my fault when you rate me. :)

I am considered very knowledgeable about cichlids in particular, and have bred and owned many, many cichlid species.

With that said, and with my experience, something stands out to me in your statements.

You mention that you did a water change, and she was good for 10 hours, and then she was changing colors.

Did you put dechlorinator in the water you used and do you heat the tank?

I do require information from you to proceed with proper advice, but my first advice is to check and be sure her temperature in her aquarium is 80F.  Check water parameters.  Check the filtration unit, as cichlids do very poorly in poor filtration.

Dis-coloration can be a sign of several things, #1 being a water condition alert.  It is an alert something is off, somewhere.

The first 3 things coming to mind is #1, cleanliness and #2, dechlorination and #3 temperature.

Check these 3 things immediately.

If nothing is of concern, then please respond with answers to the following questions, so I can better give you professional advice.  To do so, I need more specifics.

1. What size aquarium is it?
2. What size filter are you using?  Make and model # please.
3. How often is the filter's media changed?
4. How much water do you change bi-weekly?  Are you doing bi-weekly water changes and if not, are you aware they are recommended with larger cichlids?
5. What kind of food is she eating?
6. What is the temperature in the aquarium?
7. If you have access to water testing equipment, please send me the following parameters.  Alkalinity, hardness, nitrates, nitrites, ammonia and phosphates.

Thankyou and I look forward to your responses.
Renee