My Red Discus - Before & After Carophyll Pink

[RD.]

Do you have any references for these statements (I'm not being combative, just curious)?

Yes, I'm always capable of backing up anything that I state on the subject of fish nutrition with real data, studies posted in peer reviewed journals, etc. I'm not sure how much time I'll have to dig up some of the info tonight, but I'm sure if you're willing to spend the time searching around you'll find all the info required, and then some.

While I see your point, isn't this a concern with any kind of fish diet?

No, it's not. The only commercial feeds that I'm aware of that will turn a fish that is naturally yellow, to an unnatural orange, or a fish that is naturally pink, to blood red, use these same synthetic color enhancing agents.

The same company that produces Carophyll Pink also makes a yellow enhancer for egg yolks. Take a look at the orange side of the scale in DSM's egg yolk fan - has anyone here ever ate egg yolks that color from a free range fed chicken? I think not.

And just to show how common this type of artificial enhancement is in Asia .....

http://forum.bidka.org/showthread.php?t=3018&page=3

I was in Singapore two weeks ago to attend the Discus Judging course of Discus Club (Singapore) and for the Aquarama Fair. There were some heavily colour enhanced fish competing in the Show. All of them made it to the first three in their classes. Some of the fish were hormone fed and some were colour enhancer fed. After the competition, I had the opportunity to discuss this subject with Dr. Sun, Andrew Soh, Colin Hang, Brandon Wu and Ivan Seah. All of them agreed that excessive amount of colour enhancers and hormone should not be fed to the fish BUT, they all believe that both colour enhancers and hormones CAN be used to reveal the real colour potential of the fish. Of course, nobody can really tell to which extend. We all agreed that the fish should not be coloured to the point where it looks artificial. However, some fish who got rewards on the Aqurama Show were so much enhanced that they were looking like they were made of plastic, including the Grand Champion. I talked to the owner of the fish Raymond and he told that he was using only natural ingredients in fish food to show the colour but even the fins were yellow which is a good indicator of heavily used articial colour enhancers.

This brings us to the point whether natural colour enhancers maybe used and artificial ones should not be used. I believe this should be the case. I don't believe that feeding paprika or spiriluna gives any harm to discus. However, it is not the case with artificial ones. All the articial enhancers which are beinig used on fish today were fist developed to be used on cage birds, especially canaries. Experiments made on canaries which were fed canthaxanthin in excessive amount showed that it causes liver and retina damage. On the bird products there is a warning on the label about this. However, most of the fish owners/breeders is unaware of this fact.

 

[TonyN]

just wanted to point out that Carophyll Pink is not canthaxanthin, it's Astaxanthin, Canthaxanthin, which were found to cause retina damage in human, are no longer use in farmed salmon industry, it's primary usage now is in chicken feed (along with Carophyll Yellow) to color egg yolk. Understand, that even though there are no evident of long termed effect of Carophyll Pink (I've not found any) does not mean that there wouldn't be one.

@RD,
I respect your view and opinion on using natural products. I've tried most of the natural ingredients/products you've mentioned, but the results were not desirable (to me at least)

Tony

 

[RD.]

Tony, are you familiar with the old proverb "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear"?

When it comes to fish, including discus, the 3 most important things to consider when buying the fish are:

1. genetics
2. genetics
3. genetics

In todays designer world of discus breeding, finding a red strain that does everytihng but glow in the dark isn't very difficult to do. Plenty of high quality red strains out there, and if fed a properly balanced diet they will be plenty red, with no need for hormones, or synthetic color enhancers such as Carophyll Pink. Check any one of the larger discus forums out there in cyber land & you will find that almost no one in the western world uses Carophyll Pink etc to enhance the color of their fish. A local breeder feeds his discus (3,000+ gallons worth) pellets & flakes exclusively, and they all have amazing color, have great size, are never sick, and breed like rabbits.

Take a look at the discus in the following link, a wild caught Curipera, and a prime example of why genetics are the most important part of the equation. http://www.pbase.com/anastacio4/image/119359954

If a fish requires hormones &/or Carophyll Pink to look good, then IMO it's time to start looking for a new fish.


BTW - I couldn't help but notice that Carophyll Pink has only been approved for an inclusion rate of 110 mg/kg in farmed fish feed, and on your website you recommend 2 grams. (2,000 mg/kg)

If you can find a long term feed trial that involves tropical fish such as Discus, where Carophyll Pink was used at an inclusion rate of 2,000 mg/kg, I would love to read it.

And while I'm at it, I should also point out that while Carophyll Pink contains 8-10% astaxanthin, the other 90+% of this product is filler, which consists of; gelatin, corn starch, dextrin, sucrose, ascorbyl palmitate, and preserved for long term storage with ethoxyquin.

http://technicaldocuments.dsm.com/p...0/DNPNAtemp_NA_000000000000412120_MSDS_EN.pdf


I have no problem with you feeding these types of products to your own fish, Tony, it's a free world & all that - but this is a public forum & as such I couldn't help but weigh in with my 2 cents on this subject.

Cheers

 

[TonyN]

Thank you RD. Again I respect your opinions. I maybe new to MFK, but I've been raising discus for a long time (started in the '80), I would love to buy discus with good genetics, however, I've bought the best that I could afford.

I'm just offering other hobbyists a choice. If others are happy with natural products then I'm all for it. For me, I've been looking for CP for a very long time.

Regards,
TonyN

 

[Blue2Fyre]

What I don't think is "fair", deeb, is when someone unknowingly buys fish that are enhanced using these types of methods, only to later find out that when the 'juice' wears off, or the Carophyll Pink is no longer fed, that their prize fish suddenly look like yesterdays pile of crap.

This is exactly what happened to me a few months ago.

I bought this fish

3 weeks later it looked like this

Despite being fed good food(NLS) and good water quality it never regained any of the color, grew slowly and was just never very healthy.

 

[Zaminpirlo]

all problems aside, these fish look awesome congratz dude!

 

[mshill90]

Thank you RD. Again I respect your opinions. I maybe new to MFK, but I've been raising discus for a long time (started in the '80), I would love to buy discus with good genetics, however, I've bought the best that I could afford.

I'm just offering other hobbyists a choice. If others are happy with natural products then I'm all for it. For me, I've been looking for CP for a very long time.

Regards,
TonyN

If you bought the best you could afford, you must not be able to afford much.. I have seen STUNNING discus at my LFS full grown that were only like $60.

Instead of buying crap fish, and feeding them CP, why don't you SAVE some money, and buy some good quality discus.

Raising them since the 80's and you can't find anything decent... Something tells me you aren't looking hard enough, or you aren't willing to pay for quality.

 

[dogofwar]

The only "problems" seem to be comments from other people...

Matt

all problems aside, these fish look awesome congratz dude!

 

[RD.]

There are plenty of quality discus breeders & importers in North America, and none of them pump their fish up with CP. Most honest discus breeders would frown on these types of products, just as they do the use of hormones, ditto to quality breeders of Asian arowana. (another species mentioned on Tony's website)

I suspect that if Tony had posted this discussion in the Asian aro folder, or Discus folder, he wouldn't have received a very warm welcome.

This whole topic reminds me of a Trooper song from back in the 70's. lol

Hey wait a minute
Who do you think you are
Comin' on, comin' on
Just like you're some kinda movie star

Well you can say what you like
Be what you wanna be
You can suit yourself baby
But you don't suit me

You're just a 3 dressed up as a 9
You're only, wastin' my time
A 3 dressed up as a 9, hey yeah ...

 

[Otolith]

Same stuff in krill and makes flamingos pink eh? I don't really see the issue so long as there is full disclosure when utilized in animals for sale.
As far as safety....cells don't know if an antioxidant is produced in a yeast or tube so long as its the correct isomer.