Home grown color enhancer test

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J

JoelR

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 15, 2006
560
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Jacksonville FL
Where to start??

I come from a reptile breeding background with Bearded dragons being one of the ones I've worked with. I've found that feeding them things high in carotene to increase their color. I was wondering if that could be carried over to fish? More specifically, my rope fish. I've seen some that just glow with color with, from what I've seen, the females being a bright orange and the males more of a green. That was until my last purchase. I got a female that is a slate gray/green with her belly being a very pale orange. I've had her for about a month now & she is eating like a beast so I don't think it's stress induced. Is it genetic or diet?
I’m going to give something a shot & see if I can change it. I've already got a worm bin going, growing red worms. I'm going give the worms a diet rich with sweet potatoes, carrots, & pumpkin and see what happens.
I hope it will increase the color on my Ornate Poly as well??

I'll get before & after pics of the ropes 1 male & 2 females, and my Ornate.

Anyone with any insight on this subject?

Thanks
Joel
 
I believe it's heavily genetic. I have a pair of ropes and the male is darker olive green, and the female is bright neon green.

They both have the same diet.


I'm still interested in those pics though, you could be on to something.
 
I got some pics for comparison. I have one more female rope in another tank that I haven't gotten pics of yet. The water is a bit cloudy right now. I'll get them ASAP.

Here is a way cool pic of my male Rope.


Here's a pic of both my male & female. This is the slate female.


Same female


One more of that female
 
Here is my Ornate Poly. (I'm hoping he'll get more yellow on him)


another of the Ornate (His tail anyway)


And my Green Phantom
 
I think it's both genetic and diet induced. If you have a gray bearded dragon that has always had gray lineage, and fed it food with carotenes(sp?), it wouldn't have orange/red color just appear on its body. However, if you have, say, a Sandfire dragon and fed it carotene enriched foods... you get my point.
 
fishlvr;1232235; said:
I think it's both genetic and diet induced. If you have a gray bearded dragon that has always had gray lineage, and fed it food with carotenes(sp?), it wouldn't have orange/red color just appear on its body. However, if you have, say, a Sandfire dragon and fed it carotene enriched foods... you get my point.
Click to expand...

I completely know what you're saying. The problem with that is when you buy a fish or dragon for that matter, from a pet store, You have no idea what kind of lineage it's coming from. So the only way to find out is to give it a shot.

One trick for dragons that will not (at least I don't think) work for the fish is lighting. Intense lighting can dramatically increase color in dragons!
 
I suspect it is a combination of diet and genetics, with an emphasis on the genetics side of the equation. The enhanced diet will likely serve to bring out the full potential that particular fish was gentically predisposed to reach.

I will also be very interested to see how this one turns out, as I want to darken the colours on my lapradei, (or at least increase the contrast) without having to go to a black substrate, as others on the forum have successfully shown results with....

:popcorn:

O
 
ocellatus;1235274; said:
I will also be very interested to see how this one turns out, as I want to darken the colours on my lapradei, (or at least increase the contrast) without having to go to a black substrate, as others on the forum have successfully shown results with....
Click to expand...
actually black isn't the substrate to increase contrast.

if you just wanna darken the color and don't care about the contrast, then sure, as black will generally darken the base color and patterns alike, thus actually giving the whole fish a very dark look and reducing the contrast.

if you wanna increase the contrast, which is what most people like to do, red substrate is the best, and this is especially true with lapradei and endli.
 
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