My Jack

Question
I have a Jack Dempsey in an 80 gallon tank w/ a catfish, a clown knifefish and a rainbow cichlid, He is doing great but his color is looking off, His belly and up his sides is an opaque grey color and he has yellow w/ brown stripes across the bridge of his nose instead of the black w/ darker stripes, His blue is way off instead of the royal blue dots, his are more of a cornflower and less irrisdescent, I was wondering what might be causing this, He hunts the live feeders well enough and eats the krill I put in, Ive heard they like veggies too but was unsure which type to give. Thanks

Answer
Hi Jenica,
I have a Jack Dempsey too and he gets very moody and changes color. He has sometimes gone from being a beautiful colorful fish to a drab beige color. He is also a very big baby and is scared of my large severum. Does yours seem to be afraid of any fish in your aquarium? They do like hiding places and cavelike structures to get in. I always thought that they feared nothing and would kill any other fish but I have found that this is not always the case. They are sometimes big babies and this causes various color changes.
If you don't think that his color is any result of  disease then maybe he is just having moods that change his color. It sometimes is worse if they are young. Observe his areas that you say look grey and make sure that it isn't any disease such as fungus.
As for feeding be careful about the feeders unless you are sure that they have no diseases since sometimes feeding fish feeders can cause your fish to get diseases from them. It is better if you can raise the feeders yourself so you can be sure of the quality of the fish. I have fed mine feeders (Mollies and guppies)that I have raised and quality pellets, krill, brine shrimp, shrimp pellets and he has access to zuchinni and romaine lettuce several times a week. It is attached to a rock with a rubber band. I don't know if he is really brave enough to try to eat the zuchinni or lettuce with the severum around. He prefers to grab a pellet or shrimp and dart back into his cave area. As long as he has hiding areas his color is great but if he doesn't have several areas to retreat to he will change colors.
Hope this has helped,
Karen