Colour Enhancing Foods

[Essjay]

Before buying loose food or food from supermarkets look at the ingredients. They may be cheaper because they are unbranded but they may have the same poor food quality as the cheaper branded makes.


I've started using Northfin fish food. I get mine from Ebay.

Fish Food – NorthFin Premium Fish Food

www.northfin.com

Look at the product info page on their website as well.

 

[styla12]

What sort of fish do you have?
What sort of fish looked bright and colourful at the pet shop?

--------------------
Fish will show better colours when they have a dark substrate, lots of plants (including floating plants for shade), and a dark background.

Adult fish show more colour than juvenile or young fish.

Some species of fish naturally have more colour than other species.

--------------------
Paprika and orange foods like pumpkin, apricots and orange squash can be added to food to enhance orange and yellow colours in fish.

Blueberries and purple carrots can be added to food to encourage blue colours in fish.

Beetroot can be used to enhance red colours.

It is best to use the juice from the above list of foods. Wash the food with water, dry them and then juice them. Soak some frozen food like prawn or fish in the juice for a few minutes and then feed it to the fish. Do this daily and after a few weeks the fish should show better colours.

Colour enhancing foods and juice from colourful foods will only improve colour for healthy fish and while the colour foods are being used. When you stop adding the colour enhancing food, the fish will lose the extra colour after a few weeks and look normal again.

Thanks for the detailed response.

So I've varied diet a bit over last few days and am seeing a nicer colour now. Attached a photo of my favourite golden ram. I sometimes feel it looks a bit pale but maybe I'm worried for no reason. What do you think?

I use a black sand substrate and a black background and have my tank planted with around 6 plants and drift wood and spider wood.

 

[styla12]

My guppies are quite small and I also have some tetras and rams in the tank.

Would I need to buy NLS 1mm pellets or 0.5mm pellets? I've noticed sometimes with bigger pellets some fish just play with them and can't swallow them. If I was to use 0.5mm pellets would this work for all guppies, tetra and rams? I've read somewhere this seems like powder at 0.5mm is that true?

Thanks

 

[Essjay]

It is possible that the ram looks pale because living in London you will have hard water and rams are soft water fish. Stressed fish look paler than they usually do.

 

[Colin_T]

The fish is a gold ram (gold mutation of the normal ramirezi dwarf cichlid). It will never be very colourful.

 

[Metalhead88]

I really like northfin food. I feed a few varieties of the brand, but I wish they made floating food. Anything over 1mm sinks immediately.

The .5mm community or 1mm cichlid (it's the same thing except for size) would be perfect.

 

[AbbeysDad]

Our fish in the hobby are either grazers or gorgers. With most being grazers. Grazers have small stomachs and spend much of their day foraging for food, eating small bits here and there. Gorgers (typically much larger fish) will eat a large amount of food, then not eat again for quite some time. Since most of my fish are grazers, with many fry and young fish growing out, I feed several times a day IN SMALL AMOUNTS. I see no advantage in fasting fish one or more days a week, Although I have withheld food for 2-3 days prior to bagging for auctions with no apparent ill effects.
------
I wrote an article, published in our clubs publication, regarding commercial fish foods. In the old days, many foods were made with low quality fish meal (e.g. cannery waste- head, bone, scales) with a LOT of grain/grain starch as binder/filler. These days, many high quality foods are made from WHOLE fish meals and these can be just as good as foods made from fresh fish (which may or may not be WHOLE fresh fish!). So there are many high quality commercial foods available. BUT you must examine the ingredient list.
There are many good foods: Omega One, New Life Spectrum, Cobalt, Ocean Nutrition, Tetramin, Northfin, to name a few.
I blend 3 high quality foods and augment with cultured live foods and on rare occasion, frozen food like brine shrimp.
I think a good stable diet of nutritious food negates any need for special food for color. Color is often a function of genetics as much or more than diet.
------

 

[Essjay]

I really like northfin food. I feed a few varieties of the brand, but I wish they made floating food.

They've started making flakes now as well, they should float better than pellets. Cichlid flake, krill flake, kelp flake and community flake - they are all labelled 'new' in Northfin's website.

 

[Metalhead88]

They've started making flakes now as well, they should float better than pellets. Cichlid flake, krill flake, kelp flake and community flake - they are all labelled 'new' in Northfin's website.

Yeah, I saw that. That'd be good for one of my tanks, but my larger fish pretty much need pellets and it'd be great if they made floating ones. They have the sticks that float, but it's too big for half of the fish in that tank.