Dyed Tetras

[Missy]

I know I'm starting something here but Im curious what people know about these tetras.
Apparantly they are fed with food containing dyes as fry and from that they obtain their color.
They are not injected with dye.
Does anyone approve of this or know any more about it? Is this acceptable or not. The fish are not pained at all by simply being fed dye and I must say they are beautiful.

 

[Auratus]

First of all, if a fish is fed colored food it would go through it's body and not turn any color. And if it did, it would only color the stomach and intestines. Not the flesh and skin!!!

Would you eat dye and expect no side effects Think about it...

 

[Shark_Lover]

my neons are like that.......it will soon disappear.

 

[snowyangel]

Missy, I actually own one of these "blueberry tetras", but he's an adult now and has his nice, natural white colour back with long fins . I don't personally like the idea of dying a fish, i think they are way more healthier if they stay the colour they're meant to be, plus they loss they're colour within several months. But if you see the original colour of these "coloured" tetras(aka:white Skirt tetras) they are quite a plain colour(to the consumer) so stores dye them to sell more of them. You usually see them at Walmart right?
I will try to post a pic of him in Aquarium Pics for you to see later. Besides that, thats all i got to share!

 

[Cian McLiam]

Surprisingly enough, you can bring our certain colours in fish by feeding different foods, I feed my apisto's brine shrimp as it helps bring out the red colours.

As to whether they are acceptable or not, this is something you must decide for yourself, dont let anyone tell you what is right or wrong, read their opinions and decide which rings true for you.

Personally, I can find superb coloured fish in my LFS that arent dyed or otherwise coloured, I guess I am lucky. If you want to keep to the true spirit of keeping fish, I suggest you ask the shop selling the fish the hard questions and see how comfortable they are answering.

Fishkeepers are blessed to have such amazing choice when choosing pets to bring home, I find artificial coloured fish to be a totally unnecessary and often cruel exercise. They also seem to lack the 'wow' factor you get when discovering for the first time a fish that surprises and excites you with its natural colouring. The contrived and almost cynical twisting of nature just isnt to my taste I suppose.

Ken

 

[snowyangel]

Just to understand you better, is this the kind of tetra your asking about?

http/fish.orbust.net/forums/index.php?sh...pic=18053&st=0&

I made post showing the coloured vs the natural colouring, hope it helps!

 

[Missy]

Yes snowy angel. That is exactly what I was talking about but their natural color that you showed is beautiful the way they are. Thank you

 

[Mollymomma]

I have had 2 strawberry tetra's & 2 blueberry ones since Jan.10, 2003... I bought a tank for my daughter's birthday & they were the fish she picked out. I explained to her why we really didn't want to buy the fish how they were dyed ect. She looks at me with big blue eyes & says "then we really need to take them home so they can have a good life away from the mean people" Soooo home we go with 4 of them...I hated buying them because I am againest dying fish but couldn't break the baby girl's heart either.

Our 4 are now a very faded pink & blue almost back to the natural color. They ended up being one of the best fish I have owned.

Will I buy them again dyed = no
Will I buy them unharmed & natural = YES

 

[bgraber]

Yeah, I was just gonna ask about the "color enhancing" foods.. Do they work? I saw about the brine shrimp.. I noticed that my "green" tiger barbs lost their green sheen for a couple weeks, but it seems to have come back