Hormone Fed Leopard (Before and After)

[ivo]

It was red as Ferrari when i bought it and note the tail is clear instead of red or orange like some red enhancer could cause. Couple of months later....
Happened to anyone before?

[ILLUSN]

thats such a pity, breeders blend flake will help bring the color back, colorbits will also help but will make the tail orange.

[ivo]

Hi Illusn, i tried to feed him with several type of red color enhancing food but it was only losing color and red spots everyday instead. i think it was way too hormone fed and i also think hormone discus's health is weaker. it was always the first one which caught illness and the last one to recover. i sent it to heaven a few months ago already. it was pretty disgusting to look at.

[BigDaddyAdo]

That sucks dude. Just goes to show that a trusted discus dealer is worth its weight in gold.


Ado

[cityguy]

Thats the only reason I do not like to feed color enhancers to my fishes, at-least not the artificial ones. Fishes are abused by suppliers and hobbyists alike by feeding color enhancing hormones, and you have to go on feeding the same for their lifetime or face a fading fish ! Its just like bodybuilders taking steroids !

I am feeding my fishes with krill, freeze dried shrimp and brine shrimps, and hopefully they will come out with naturally glossy colors in days to come.

[cityguy]

Hi Illusn, i tried to feed him with several type of red color enhancing food but it was only losing color and red spots everyday instead. i think it was way too hormone fed and i also think hormone discus's health is weaker. it was always the first one which caught illness and the last one to recover. i sent it to heaven a few months ago already. it was pretty disgusting to look at.

does that quote means you killed the fish or it died naturally ..!

[tomahawk]

That is the reason I steer clear of fishes when they look very bright and beautiful. You really cannot trust these aquarium shop buggers! Sorry to hear about your fish-loss friend!

[ozarowana]

I have experienced this with both red and yellow discus.

I know some exporters in Asia still insist on colour treating somes strain before sending them. Good importers here do ask for them to be sent as is though.

[DIY]

I've spoken "off the record" to a few aquarium stores that sell discus. Unfortunately they are at the mercy of breeders and exporters, they can ask for non-hormoned discus and usually get the standard response of "we do not use hormones" or "all our discus are colourful due to our expert breeding program" or something along those lines.

The ones I have spoken too often see very brightly coloured discus arrive from the wholesaler/importer and they always sell quickly. They can only go on what they are told, and feedback from the buyers. One discussion I had sticks in my mind, the store owner had very strong suspicions about the use of hormones and just how commonplace it was to produce the bright colours. He also "hinted" that if they were hormone fed another benefit for the large breeders of these fish is the higher likelyhood of them being sterile. Obviously not a benefit if you buy them to breed but a benefit for the original breeder as they protect their linage.

Possibly a pessemistic view by the store owner, but he was prepared to warn any customer (like myself) about "possible" hormone use outside of his control in the discus he sold if when asked they stated they were looking at breeding them. Any store owner that is willing to do that has my business!