Color Enhancing Foods or Dyed?

Hi Everybody! I've been reading again and am curious about your experience and thoughts on this topic.

I've read that there are some livestock (not all mentioned are wild caught) that loose their color in the aquarium. I've also come across the theories that 1) the native habitats have some mineral or nutrient that leads to the coloring and that component isn't found in most aquariums and 2) the livestock has been dyed. I've come across the tidbit that in particular carotenoids found in algaes react with the body chemistry to enhance colors in livestock - the examples I've read have all been microalgaes.

What's your experience been? Have you had livestock that has paled? Have you had livestock that particularly colors up when fed a certain food? Do you feel there are unscrupulous sellers out there dying their stock for a more apealing purchase that naturally colored stock? What do you guys think of all this?

Flamingos are pink because of the food they eat. Many fish respond well to certain foods and do color up. This is one of the huge claims/selling points of NLS foods. They say you can notice a difference in 10 days of exclusive feeding. I tried it and did not see any difference in my fish so I went back to Omega One. My fish was not a fish that developed deep colors, was more pastel so the color enhancers did little. That was just the genetics of that fish.

In my experience, color seems to be more strongly related to the environment that the fish or inverts are kept in. Inverts especially will vary their colors greatly depending on the tank. Some examples of this that I've seen first hand include shrimp appearing darker on darker substrates, shrimp acquiring more markings when they feel threatened (larger fish in the tank with them), and cajun dwarf cray fish turning blue in water with PH under 7. And of course fish become quite pale when stressed, either due to transportation or a bad tank situation.

That said, when I fed my baby Celestial Pearl Danios mostly micro-worms and golden pearls, they were quite healthy but developed yellow fin coloration. This wasn't unattractive, but these fish tend toward orange or red coloration for everyone else. On the recommendation of another CPD breeder I started feeding them crushed flake that included an array of carotenoids once a day and I don't have yellow CPDs anymore - they're all orange or red now.

I've never encountered dyed fish...thankfully.

Substrate can have a huge influence on the fish coloration.

I had an Argentea that was very dark because I had dark gravel. Others I had seen were almost white with lighter gravel. My sailfin pleco loved the dark gravel and showed his true color and pattern, when I had him on lighter he was always washed out looking.

I had known about the flamingos color due to their heavy shrimp diet. And that environment can effect the colors of the livestock. Which I think is probably a defense/hunting reaction (think of all the camoflauge naturally found in the animal kingdom) and in the case of spawning fish, attraction of a potential mate. I was thinking that the color variations were probably a mix of diet and environment as an involuntary reaction to how best survive the environment- it just makes sense to me. After all most of the animal world's top instints is survival.

What was throwing my view of things were these "buyer accounts" of dyed fish. Were they just people who didn't understand about these coloration factors? Were they truly unlucky enough to by dyed fish? There's not any real way to know. But the idea of dying livestock is just really repulsive. I guess thinking back on it, maybe that's what I wanted to know most - if any of us in this neck of the woods had come across that.

Anyway, thanks for the input guys

Seeing how I just got two Oscars I will comment a little on dyed fish. There is an Oscar being sold that is called a "blueberry" Oscar. This one is a dyed fish. If you have ever researched the process of coloring, it is barbaric and cruel. So no surprise that many would not buy them. There is still a market for these fish from ones who just dont care or dont know. Sad

There is beauty in all fish. It's a shame some folks only appreciate the shiny, loud variety. Kids at the fish store telling their equally clueless parent "I want the nemo fish!!" come to mind. We have to fix stupid before fish dying goes away. And good luck with that!

Can't fix stupid.

A zo I just got I keep on black and gold sand and feed omegaone flakes worms hikari gold .and the gold is better than all color enhancing foods ime imo . My fish are all extremely colourful .substrate is the biggest prob

I have also noticed and heard first hand, that they are also doing something along the same line to male peacocks when small. That way they are more attractive and can be sold for more. Soon after you get them home they bright colors fade to bland and then the true colors come out. But Never as bright as they were when they were shot up with something.

Midway has a tank of these. All the males are about 1.5" and the most colorful males at that size I have ever seen. But still not right.

the persuit of $ can make people do scary things

Greed is a huge problem with the world

Once I changed to a much whiter substrate from PFS my fishes color change within an hour. Of course moods of the fish will change it's color as well.

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I find that when you see fish for sale online and photos ...thats the best that fish may ever look due to lighting, and photo manipulation.

i think there is a thread on here somewhere about those highlighter colored fish.... It was pretty cool little article... I found out there is a difference between tattooing a fish and a genetically dyed fish.... those highlighter fish, (forgot there name) were actually died when in egg form, this changed there genetics completly now they keep the gene and pass it to there kids.... They were originally bread to go be easily found in sewers with a blacklight so they could test waters and stuff.....Crazy huh?!

There is no way you are getting a fish that is dyed and you wouldnt know about it.... it costs so much money to do that, they wouldnt sell the fish for regular cost. now I am not sure about other fish, but with most african cichlids that ive kept there color was enhanced based on several things.

Mood
hormones
background/substrate color
gender
Food
health
age

It's reassuring to think that it's easier to pick out the dyed fish than one might think at first glance - I for one hope to never support that niche of the hobby.

I think there are so many contributing factors in the natural coloration there is a resulting variety that is just plain fun. And it's also interesting what we can do as owners to effect the ecosystems of our tanks. Which is part of what is so fascinating about this hobby to me.