How to bring out the best color ?

[tomahawk]

What natural feed (which would be easily available) will bring out the best and vibrant colors in my Discus, irrespective of whether the fishes are blue, white or red. I would not like to pump them with anything artificial. Currently feeding with beefheart and freeze dry bloodworm.

[DIY]

If you are making your own beefheart mix, you can add some prawns and spirulina to the mix. My understanding is both of those enhance colours. You can also add astaxanthin as a colour enhancer, several sponsors of this site stock "naturose" brand natural astaxanthin.

I can't remember which colours are enhanced for each of those, at a quick guess probably Red using the prawns and astaxanthin and Blue for the spirulana.

[DIY]

Forgot to mention, Spirulana is easily found in health food stores and is rich in vitamins etc, it's actully good for cats, dogs people etc. Both Spirulana and Astaxanthin are forms of algae harvested for use a food addatives.

[cityguy]

Certain additives like paprika, beet juice, shrimp or lobster roe, ground marigolds, astanxanthin and other high-carotene foods are commonly mixed with prepared foods to induce coloration, and all of these are natural feed.

[cityguy]

PS: Forgot to mention, you can also try Hikari Spirulina and Brine Shrimp for natural coloration. DIY did mention about spirulina..

[tomahawk]

Brine shrimp is easily available in my neighbourhood fancy fish stores, in the food section. Will it bring out color in my fishes ?

[ILLUSN]

it will to a degree, its rich in caratinoids, you'll have much better results with astanxanthin and spirulina as they not only contain pigments but also vitamins to help the fish synthesise colour.

[cityguy]

Illusn, whats astanxanthin ?

[Hollowman]

Hi City,

take a look at this link:

http://www.healthanswersboard.com/astaxanthin.htm

[ILLUSN]

sorry city guy excuse my spelling i coppied it from you post LOL.

Astaxanthin is an energy storage compound used by algae. MAC is the guru on the stuff. its fantastic for fish.

[mistakes r crucial]

Hi all,

You really shouldn't get me started on Astaxanthin Illusn, I tend to get on my soap box! It's a fantastic substance and the more research and scientific trials I come across the more convinced I am about the importance of it to most mammals which of course includes us. My family takes it every day and has done for the last couple of years.

Some time ago someone on another forum said that Asta is Asta no matter where it comes from. No one really knew at the time but now that statement is proven to be very incorrect. Synthetic Astaxanthin (made from petro chemicals) simply does not have the health benefits of the natural sources so I'd be looking on your fish food labels to see where yours comes from. I can tell you that most commercial fish foods do not contain natural Astaxanthin, the majority of them use synthetic forms because of cost implications.

The below excerpt from Astaxanthin - King of the Carotenoids by Bob Capelli will explain what it is far better than I can. If you want to see just how good it is for humans and your pet dog or cat take a look at this ebay link and click the YouTube video. http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=320265501960

Here it is, a long post but a good read for those interested.

Have you ever seen a bird bath in summer that has dried up? Sometimes you’ll see a reddish color where the standing water has evaporated. The red you’re seeing is Natural Astaxanthin.

What has happened is that some green algae (perhaps the one that commercial growers of Natural Astaxanthin use which is called Haematococcus Pluvialis) have suffered stress. The stress is due to a combination of things: Lack of food, an absence of water, intense sunlight and heat, or even bitter cold. As a result of this stress, the algae’s cells have hyperaccumulated the red pigment Astaxanthin.

They do this as a survival mechanism— the Astaxanthin serves as a “force-field” to protect the algae from lack of nutrition and/or intense sunlight. It’s an absolutely amazing fact, but due to the protective properties of Astaxanthin, these algae can stay dormant for more than forty years without food or water, suffering in the summer sun or in the winter cold; yet when conditions are appropriate and there is food and water and no extreme weather, the algae will go back into their green, motile stage.

Astaxanthin can be found in plants and animals throughout the world. It is most prevalent in algae and phytoplankton, but it also can be found in a limited number of fungi and bacteria. Because organisms like many Astaxanthin-containing algae and plankton are the base of the food chain, Astaxanthin can be found in many animals as well.

Any sea animal that has a reddish or pinkish color contains Natural Astaxanthin. For example, you can find Astaxanthin in salmon, trout, lobster, shrimp and crab. These animals eat krill and other organisms that ingest Astaxanthin-containing algae and plankton as a major part of their diets. And since lots of different animals such as birds, bears and even humans eat these sea animals, you can find Astaxanthin in all sorts of places. As we mentioned before, the animals that have the highest concentration of Astaxanthin are salmon, where it concentrates in their muscles and makes them the endurance heroes of the animal world.

Astaxanthin is an essential nutrient for many species of fish and crustaceans. It is basically a “vitamin” for some species—without Astaxanthin these animals’ health will be severely compromised.

The essential nature of Astaxanthin for certain species has been demonstrated in different feed trials. One such trial is a perfect example: A study of the effects of Astaxanthin on survival and growth rates for Atlantic salmon fry; they found that without Astaxanthin, only 17% of these tiny fish survived to become adult fish. As the researchers increased the amount of Astaxanthin in the diet from 0.4 parts per million (ppm), to 1.0 ppm and finally up to 13.7 ppm, the percentage of fry that survived increased. In fact, by the time they went from zero up to 1.0 ppm, the amount of fish that survived increased from 17% all the way up to 87%!

And when they reached the maximum levels used in this study of 13.7 ppm, the survival rate increased to over 98%! (If this isn’t proof that
Astaxanthin is an essential nutrient for salmon, then nothing is.)
This study went on to examine Astaxanthin’s effect on the growth rate
in these salmon. A similar effect to that of the survival rate was found: At zero Astaxanthin inclusion, the fry grew very slowly; when the feed reached 1.0 ppm Astaxanthin, the fry were growing more than twice as fast; and by the time the feed reached the maximum value tested of 13.7 ppm Astaxanthin, the fry grew over six times faster than the fish given no Astaxanthin. It’s really amazing to think about how far a little Astaxanthin goes—13.7 ppm is a very small amount, and 1.0 ppm is practically nothing. Yet even at the 1.0 ppm level fish grow twice as fast and 70% more fish survive! You can see that pigmenting the salmon’s flesh is not the only reason why salmon farmers make sure their feed contains Astaxanthin—the pigmentation is simply what enables them to sell the fish.

They’re also using Astaxanthin to keep the young fish alive and to make them grow much faster, two things that help ensure the economic viability of any farming operation. And growth and survival are only two of the proven health benefits for aquacultured species. Others benefits include improved breeding and egg quality, improved stress resistance, improved immunity to diseases and even better feed conversion ratios (the amount of feed needed for a specific weight gain). In one experiment done with sturgeon in Russia, the feed conversion ratio improved by 30% (Ilyasov and Golovin, 2003). And both sturgeon and rainbow trout have been shown to have increased immunity due to elevated humoral factors
(Luzzano, et al, 2003 and Ilyasov and Golovin, 2003).