Color Enhanced Homemade Fish Food

[NotoriousSway]

I have mentioned this to a couple of people and thought I would post it. A couple years ago I was trying to bring out the orange in my Aul. Maleri Island fry and decided to make my own food. The food was not complicated at all, all I did was take my regular fish food flakes and mix a little water and a lot of paprika and crushed red pepper because I had read this could be used to bring out the red. I put this in a siringe and extruded it out and let dry, for a end result of fish food sticks. Well after a couple weeks you can see the results below...

These are 2"+ fry

For comparison here is their bright yellow Aulonocara sp. "Stuartgranti Maleri" father.

 

[cnoel08]

wow. lets see some before and after on the babys too

 

[NotoriousSway]

Sorry I don't have any before and after and they were sold soon after this pic was taken. Like I said this was a couple years ago and this is just a random pic I took, I never planned on making a thread out of it. It was even before I was a member here. Sorry this is far from scientific standards, this was done back when I was a noob.

 

[cnoel08]

oh ok, still looks good tho

 

[evojoey]

I wonder if there are any long term effects of using the pepper and paprika in the food. Might be worth a try on some of my german red fry.

 

[NotoriousSway]

It can turn your water reddish brown if you are using high amounts like I did but if you keep up with water changes it shouldn't be a problem. I don't know about red pepper but I know some people use paprika in their homemade foods, I remember someone said it had niacin in it.

 

[evojoey]

Sounds good. I'm gonna give it a try. Thanks

 

[Muske]

Some RTC owners will coat food like market shrimp in paprika to color up the tail.

 

[NotoriousSway]

Some RTC owners will coat food like market shrimp in paprika to color up the tail.

One of those turkey flavor injectors would work great for that.

 

[mike dunagan]

I have heard that some fish food companies use it too