First post and advice on making red pop

[FishyTJ]

Hey everyone, I tend to just do some browsing on here whenever I have some questions so it's nice to finally post.

Here is my flowerhorn, I'm not experienced with the deciding factors of a red dragon so if anyone could chime in on their thoughts please do. I've been doing a lot of water changes due to my habits of over feeding so his colors and kok are a bit duller and smaller than usual, but not by much. However even at what seems to be full potential for his colors I can't seem to get that nice strong/vibrant red I see so often. He is getting more red on his head each day but it's a slow development. I'm going away for a few days and set an automatic feeder to minimum so I can hopefully introduce something new to his diet that you might recommend.

Right now I just started feeding GS original and red for about a week, and give him meal works every day as a treat between meals. I do sometimes drop in some frozen bloom worms or mysis shrimp but it tends to dirty the water so that's less frequent. My own advice to myself has been to feed much less so it requires less water changes per week for my visual preferences in water quality - hopefully this lets him acclimate to the water better and bring out some qualities.

I have a 120 gallon at my old place that I will be moving him to once I find the time to transport. He also shares the tank with a KK parrot and they get along fine. Mirror training for 20 minutes a day.

 

[Ihsnshaik]

90% of kok is genetics. Food and water parameters are the rest. That being said anything that contains asathaxin will enhance the red. Krill and shrimp have it naturally.

 

[FishyTJ]

90% of kok is genetics. Food and water parameters are the rest. That being said anything that contains asathaxin will enhance the red. Krill and shrimp have it naturally.

Wow thanks for the quick response. He has had a rough upbringing in terms of water quality flunctuation and is finally starting to bring his kok back. When he was much smaller his head was much more defined and looked very impressive so I'm hoping it really starts to pop these next weeks.

What about beef heart?

 

[Ihsnshaik]

Wow thanks for the quick response. He has had a rough upbringing in terms of water quality flunctuation and is finally starting to bring his kok back. When he was much smaller his head was much more defined and looked very impressive so I'm hoping it really starts to pop these next weeks.

What about beef heart?

I personally don't like using that. Good pellets and occasional treats and that's it. I breed and keep Flowerhorn and from experience those Flowerhorn specific food is junk

 

[FishyTJ]

This was about a week ago before I left my roommate to watch after the tank. He kept the light off the whole time and his whole kok disappeared so the last week it's been building back.

 

[Kittiee Katt]

Have you tried changing him onto another colour substrate? You most likely wouldn't notice any bright reds on that gravel as its very bright... If that makes sense?

 

[FishyTJ]

Have you tried changing him onto another colour substrate? You most likely wouldn't notice any bright reds on that gravel as its very bright... If that makes sense?

I was under the impression that red brings out the color but I do understand what you mean! Thank you for your input

 

[Kittiee Katt]

I was under the impression that red brings out the color but I do understand what you mean! Thank you for your input

Idk if it counts for fish, but normally when you want a colour to "pop" you build darker colours around it, or use colours on the opposite side of the colour spectrum, something that will make your main colour stand out more...

This is just what I remember from grade 7 art class, I'm not sure if it counts for fish, but it works with everything from makeup to furniture so I'd assume it wouldn't be much different with fish.

 

[Ihsnshaik]

Idk if it counts for fish, but normally when you want a colour to "pop" you build darker colours around it, or use colours on the opposite side of the colour spectrum, something that will make your main colour stand out more...

This is just what I remember from grade 7 art class, I'm not sure if it counts for fish, but it works with everything from makeup to furniture so I'd assume it wouldn't be much different with fish.

When you use darker background the fish has the ability to camafalouge and get darker so they won't get "eaten" in the wild. Same goes with background the fish gets darker. If it's a bright fish already and dark background should be fine because I changed some fish around in different tanks and black sand vs white sand huge difference in looks

 

[Kittiee Katt]

When you use darker background the fish has the ability to camafalouge and get darker so they won't get "eaten" in the wild. Same goes with background the fish gets darker. If it's a bright fish already and dark background should be fine because I changed some fish around in different tanks and black sand vs white sand huge difference in looks

Yeah, I figured since we're discussing flowehorns (normally brightly coloured) that darkening the substrate up would probably help bring out his colours. He has a blue background (blue being on the opposite side to red) so darkening the substrate should help somewhat. I probably wouldn't go black personally (just me), I was thinking more a natural brown coloured substrate.