With Keeping Natives such as Blue-Gills, Pumpkinseeds, etc..

[Rays of Sunshine]

Is the background color important for the fish to really show their colors? For example with the flowerhorn fish, they will show their color intensity with blue, or the light colored backgrounds. Were as, black backgrounds, the fish wil remain dull colored. Does anyone know if this applies to our natives? Thanks.

 

[fisher12889]

It's pretty true with most fish species

 

[Noto]

Generally speaking, sunfish will look washed out if kept with light background and substrate. They will show patterns better with darker substrate and background and plenty of cover.

Their colors also change in response to temperature, health, stress, presence of food, presence of conspecifics, social position, etc. etc., and they can rapidly change color as those conditions change. I have seen warmouth slowly drifting through vegetation, changing from dark and heavily patterned to pale and back to dark as they move through patches of shade and sunshine.

 

[warmouth]

My green sunfish seemed to color up better after I would supplement their cichlid sticks with bloodworms, scuds and crickets. I would give the scuds algae out of the tank and gut load crickets with vegetables.