Thanks Tony, I appreciate the fact that we can keep this discussion civil.
I'm also certain that Pang Long will appreciate the fact that you are removing the trade/brand name of one of their aros from your website.
I have no doubt that some aro keepers have experimented with CP, just as many have with NAN lighting, but IMO if one is going to go that route they might as well save a whole boat load of $$$$ and just buy a run of the mill banjar red.
CP and it's application in tropical fishes industry have been in the dark for so long. People who've used it are not willing to talk about it. Most who talked about it have not used it It's about time we bring it to the light.
I would have to disagree. CP is used by some SE Asian breeders as a deceptive practice, just like their use of hormones. (which is also very common place in SE Asia) The regulations & rules regarding the application of these substances is VERY different than here in NA.
In a previous post we saw a classic example of an African cichlid that was 'juiced' and then exported to NA. Millions of hormoned fish enter the NA market each week from Asia, and the only reason for using hormones is for marketing & sales purposes. There are no known health attributes from these substances, other than negative ones. The sole purpose of using hormones is to create an illusion, that being one where all of the fish appear to have stunning adult male coloration, including the females. As we saw in the previous photos shown, once those hormones wore off the owner was left with what appears to be a female S. fryeri, not a male as they had thought they had originally purchased.
How is this good for the hobby?
Obviously very few breeders of so called quality fish want to discuss these practices openly, as in many cases the sole purpose behind their use is one of deception.
I suspect that very few serious hobbyists would be so eager to buy from a breeder if that breeder was to disclose the fact that their fish were all artificially enhanced with hormones, or color enhanced with products such as CP. Most hobbyists want to know exactly what they are buying up front, and I would think that most want a fish that is naturally yellow, to remain yellow. The problem with products such as CP is they will take a fish beyond what it is genetically wired to be, and actually turn a naturally yellow fish, orange. This is why people who use these types of products don't want to talk about it, not because it's some kind of ancient Chinese secret.
With regards to tropical fish food, again, no company in their right mind is going to list Carophyll Pink on the label for the same reason. They too want to create the illusion of their products enhancing the color red (naturally) beyond any other product on the market. But they fail to mention the fact that it will also affect other colors, such as white, yellow, etc. Even yellow CP at the higher inclusion rates will turn a fish orange - see the egg yolk fan previously posted.
Fish food manufacturers use these products for the same reason that salmon/trout farmers do, because they are FAR cheaper than using natural ingredients. Unfortunately in this industry cheaper seldom equates to better.
So salmon farmers use these products because they are cheap, and as eye candy for consumers, breeders in Asia use it for the same reasons, and fish food manufacturers use it for the exact same reasons.
And we are somehow now to believe that these substances are "safe", because some breeders in SE Asia that have their own private agenda said so?
I don't need to use these types of products to understand how they work, any more than I need to hold my face down to the hot burner of a stove to understand what the end result of that is going to be.
