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Does color enhancing food really make that much of a difference? I have two Jack Dempseys and I use Hikari Cichlid Staple as their main diet, but do you think that Hikari Gold might be better? Does it matter?

I think so in goldfish atleast. I feed my goldfish in my outdoor pond color enhancing food and it makes their reds, yellos, and oranges a lot brighter.

-Vincent

Well I use the Omega One flakes for my fish and it has seemed to help bring the color out alittle more for some fish. I have noticed that my gold barbs have really gained color since I started feeding them this. I think it all depends on the brand and what is used to make the food. The Omega One do not use any type of meal in the food and this in itself makes it better for fish. Just my 2 cents for ya.

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There are several brands and types of foods that "say" that they inhance the fishes colouring.
Personally I think good healthy tank with a very good variety of foods is extremly important more so than one food product. Also feeding as close to their natural foods is advisable if it can be done.

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Keith

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I feed my cichlids a hikari cichlid gold and and the color of my zebra has improved greatly. I use mostly cichlid gold but make a mixture of tropical fish flakes (color enhancing), algae pellets, and the hikari i feed twice a day and my fish love the stuff

I know higher quality foods will bring out the color better. A while back, I could not get any of the large buckets of TetraMinPro Tropical crisps. And I could not afford to buy a dozen or so of the smaller containers. So I opted for a much cheaper brand because it came in the larger 5 lb buckets. I fed this for a couple of months, as it took that long for the back orders of the good stuff to come in. I did not notice the fish loosing their colors. But, when I got them back on the TetraMinPro Tropical Crisps, I notice the colors coming back into them in less than a week. IMO, the higher quality foods do work better. As well, IMO I believe the freeze dried and frozen foods work better as well.

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There is always a bigger fish...

"Colour foods" usually contain materials that are enhanced sources of certain pigments called carotenoids. The reason that these compounds work is because they are metabolised in one form by the fishes, then converted to different carotenoids in the fishes' dermal erythrocytes and ths enhance red colours. Some of the better colour foods also contain anthoxanthins (yellow pigment colours) which again are found in some of the natural foods of certain fishes.

Carotenoids are beneficial to fishes because they are precursors for the manufacture of rhodopsin and other light sensitive pigments in the retina. Feeding fishes foods containing these compounds is the equivalent of us eating lots of carrots - it has a beneficial effect on eyesight. Some colour foods also contain enhanced levels of Vitamin D, which also plays a role in rhodopsin synthesis, though indirectly.

I've been using them for years - they have a definite effect on the intensity of the red ventral colouration of Cardinal Tetras, which becomes really intense over time. They also work beautifully with some yellow coloured fishes (Lemon Tetras being one example I've seen colour up marvellously during the past 8 or so years) and they even seem to have something of an effect upon my Pandas, though in their case, I suspect it's more the vitamin D facilitating melanin pathways for the dark markings than main body colour.

If you have a solid red Betta, it'll colour up amazingly if you feed carotenoid-rich foods. It's also a good way of making Cherry Barbs positively glow with colour. However, as AcidRain rightly points out, the benefits won't be seen if the fishes aren't healthy, so standard aquarium maintenance is still important. But if you set up two identically maintained aquaria with identical fish species, and use colour foods to feed the fishes in just one of the aquaria, you'll notice a difference as time passes.

The best combination I've found is to intersperse live foods with colour foods. Feed most fishes a smorgasbord of live Daphnia/Bloodworm, with Brine Shrimp added when available, then follow that with colour food later in the day, and repeat this process over a period of six weeks, and quite a few fishes are utterly transformed in appearance from the washed-out look they have in dealer aquaria. Of course, being in a well-planted aquarium helps with many species (Lemon Tetras, again, are a case in point, they sparkle when they have plants to swim amongst) but again, the combination of live and colour foods makes a noticeable difference even when putting fishes into surroundings that make them feel happy and secure is taken into account.

One other feature that becomes apparent is this - once the fishes have been colour fed and have strong colours, the intensity of those colours becomes an indicator of water change needs. This is most apparent in Rummy Nosed Tetras, which even without colour feeding act as 'mine canaries' alerting the aquarist to water quality issues, but other fishes too start to manifest the same kind of signalling - colours begin to wane a little as nitrates build up, then after a water change, the fishes brighten up again.



Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002