Colour enhancing fish food

[gilltyascharged]

I have a can of Tetra Color Select flakes. I have to say I have been using it for the past month, and I have noticed a color difference in my red discus. Plus, all the fish like it too.

Interesting! I feed those to my red-eyes, but while it showed some improvement in the peacock's coloration, it was the Omega One that really did it. I will agree though—all my fish seem to enjoy it

 

[Fishfunn]

Interesting! I feed those to my red-eyes, but while it showed some improvement in the peacock's coloration, it was the Omega One that really did it. I will agree though—all my fish seem to enjoy it

After and before pictures.

 

[gilltyascharged]

Here's the best I got for before and after pics. Note: while the latter is an older, more mature fish, the coloring albeit stayed the same (exception being the egg spots on the anal fin, which was so faint in the beginning that I was genuinely curious if this was a female).

 

[Magnum Man]

I have a bag of Bug Bites color enhancing formula, arriving tomorrow… has anyone tried this yet???

 

[gilltyascharged]

I have a bag of Bug Bites color enhancing formula, arriving tomorrow… has anyone tried this yet???

Sorry, not yet
You'll have to tell me how it goes!

 

[Magnum Man]

Fed the bug bites color enhancing formula, for the 1st time tonight… the bag I bought was for medium and large fish… still the same coarse granules.. which I tried to mill about 3/4 of them smaller, in my mortar and pestle… they were crisp enough, that they ground up nicely, and the fish liked them… not expecting a dramatic change, as they are already getting a good varied diet, and some already have outstanding colors… but using this post to mark the date… will see if I notice any changes

 

[robbiek22]

I’ve been trying on the blues, as well, right now my electric blue rams, and Acaras are “brilliant” but at this point, I’m assuming is just from a varied diet ( and their breeding ) but my Zebra Lace Angel seems to be coloring up also… my New Blue Diamond Angel, currently has no blue, so I’m hoping, since it has the genes to get some blue, that I can get that one there… but that color does seem to be more light dependent, than yellows or reds…

I don’t currently have anything that is predisposed towards greens… had green terrors 20 years ago… have thought about trying to add some green lizard Hillstream’s

The algae that Bug Bites is adding, seems to be predominantly reds… but the link does show other colors, so I’d be curious if those are different strains, or environmental conditions, that cause the other colors, and then of course, does the color of the algae even matter???View attachment 344243View attachment 344244

Missed this first time round. Those angels are beautiful.

 

[robbiek22]

My understanding is that it's difficult to enhance colours other than red and its allies. Blue and green are very light and reflection dependent. I have blue, violet and green fish that are stunning, but that I can't photograph because they blanch out. I don't have the skills (yet) to arrange secondary flashes and such like the big kids do, and I can't catch the colours. A lot of fish colours are smoke and reflections.
Red and orange though are very diet based. If you have a cardinal tetra, the red is true, but a rainbowfish can really be affected by food.

Both my daughters are very artistic, and the one with a tank sat down and worked out the colours on her adjustable LED, experimenting day by day til she was satisfied with the effects. Her plants grow incredibly well, but she also has amazing colour intensity on her fish. She's gotten about as close as you can get to fish in sunlight. When it comes to colour theory, I'm like a guy painting with a hammer.

I 'blanch' veggie foods by freezing them. The key is to break the internal fibre so the fish can break pieces off. We don't all have big, fruit eating pacus. Frozen then thawed zuccini (courgette?), romaine lettuce and such are great foods. I also feed dulse, a seaweed people eat with their beer around here. Some of the older approaches are sympathetic magic (the food is red so my fish will be red), but a lot of the more researched options are very cool, and may in many cases be found in the natural diet of the fish. When you collect wild fish, they come out of the water in breathtaking colours we can't always maintain. Some of that is how they look in sunlight, in the net, but some of it is nutrition.

The stores around here are selling a Polish brand of foods, and I bought a can of their colour food yesterday. I used it once before, and figure my flake staples can be this and bug bites, with live on a regular basis.

Yeah i have noticed the lighting situation of course, i too tweak regularly.
But I suppose nothing can beat nature and its beauty.
I like the colouration of the hybrid/line bred fish for obvious reasons.
But you can’t beat an original unaltered cichlid showing prime colours in nature in my opinion.

wonder if lighting will become less complicated. In my opinion there’s to much choice for tweaking I’d like a few settings to flick between that a manufacturer has spent hours looking into!

Thank you for the advice on foods. I have taken a lot on from this brief discussion already and have altered my day to day fish keeping.

 

[robbiek22]

I've been using Omega One cichlid pellets for my peacock, and I definitely noticed a difference in the first few days. While I can't say it does too much for his blue (he's an OB), his orange look amazing. I'd have to agree with the above responses—lighting and substrate have been the best solutions for me when it comes to bringing the blue out.

I’m intrigued to find out how it goes. Please keep us updated. Pictures maybe would help? Month apart possibly?

Most of those foods aren’t available in the uk or are too expensive and far and few between to keep up with for me.

I’d like to experiment with the yellow colouration. See how much we can alter it.

I know it’s a very subjective topic and open to so many variables but my original joining of this forum come around from not being able to find the answer regarding food and colouration. Setting aside general husbandry, water conditions, lighting etc. it’s nice to know that there are some specific foods that are user tested in particular seem to work on bringing out the best colouration. Someone starting out and those who constantly learning, adapting, evolving could target one of these many foods knowing that their prized pets are having a good varied diet whilst brining the best out in them from a colour stand point and then concentrate on all the other variables. This forum really helped me on that. Thanks all.

 

[gilltyascharged]

I’m intrigued to find out how it goes. Please keep us updated. Pictures maybe would help? Month apart possibly?

Most of those foods aren’t available in the uk or are too expensive and far and few between to keep up with for me.

I’d like to experiment with the yellow colouration. See how much we can alter it.

I know it’s a very subjective topic and open to so many variables but my original joining of this forum come around from not being able to find the answer regarding food and colouration. Setting aside general husbandry, water conditions, lighting etc. it’s nice to know that there are some specific foods that are user tested in particular seem to work on bringing out the best colouration. Someone starting out and those who constantly learning, adapting, evolving could target one of these many foods knowing that their prized pets are having a good varied diet whilst brining the best out in them from a colour stand point and then concentrate on all the other variables. This forum really helped me on that. Thanks all.

While the OB hasn't been on Tetra flakes as a staple for quite a while, I can try switching him back to that to see how it goes. I would be interested to see his coloration with 2 weeks on the flakes now (fully grown) versus two weeks as a juvenile. After that I can snap a pic, switch him back to his pellets, and see if there's any noticeable change. He's a pretty adaptable fish, and will eat most things with gusto—I may have to try tweaking some homemade gel food recipes and see how the coloration changes.

 

[Magnum Man]

Well, I wasn’t expecting any miracles, and it’s only been 2 feedings, so far, with the color enhancing bug bites, in a week, but my gang of adult Tin Foil barbs fins and tails, may have a bit more color…. May be wishful thinking, but may be a shade more intense red??? Took this picture, to compare in a few weeks, just to confirm