Colour Enhancing Foods

Food, feeding and diet.
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Sixo
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Hi all,

I have a couple of Bolivian Rams in my tank that appear dull in comparison from one's I've had in the past & seen online in terms of colouring.

While they're maybe not full grown they're certainly not babies either. Wondering if this is just down to their quality or should I maybe look at foods which say they enhance colouring? I don't know much about these products though if the ingredients have nutritional benefit or if it's purely a cosmetic thing, in which case I wouldn't be overly fussed.
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Gingerlove05
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What are you currently feeding them? And what are you parameters temp etc?
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Suse
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I feed mine a fairly standard diet of Hikari Micro Pellets and Tetra micro crisps, plus a random frozen cube twice a week, and mine are pretty colourful (photo of the male attached). I think it's soft water, being happy (bonded M/F pair, no other territorial fish in the tank), and good genes rather than anything I feed them. They do colour up more when breeding too, and many of the photos you see will show them at their best rather than what they look like all the time.

I've never tried the colour enhancing stuff but I wouldn't have thought it would do any harm - would be interesting to hear the results.

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Sixo
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A mixture of these GL, although just realised some are a few months out of date oops! Tank runs at temp of 24

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Last edited by Sixo on Thu Dec 26, 2019 23:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Sixo
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Suse wrote: Thu Dec 26, 2019 23:02 pm I feed mine a fairly standard diet of Hikari Micro Pellets and Tetra micro crisps, plus a random frozen cube twice a week, and mine are pretty colourful (photo of the male attached). I think it's soft water, being happy (bonded M/F pair, no other territorial fish in the tank), and good genes rather than anything I feed them. They do colour up more when breeding too, and many of the photos you see will show them at their best rather than what they look like all the time.

I've never tried the colour enhancing stuff but I wouldn't have thought it would do any harm - would be interesting to hear the results.

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Yours are stunners Suse, might be the breeding behaviour that makes the difference, sure I have two males, they don't really bother each other though. Quite sociable with the keyholes.
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Gingerlove05
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Do you use any of the frozen blister packs? I found that mixing them and dry foods gives a bit more variation and possibly fills in a gap that dry foods miss. One of the guys at my lfs who kept and bred his Apisto Agassizzi used to feed his a mix and also swears that red plankton helps enhance colour because of the red colouring in the plankton.
Either way i havent come across a fish that doesnt go mad for the frozen foods :D
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Sixo
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Usually feed frozen once a week before a water change.
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plankton
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Feed frozen more often. ;)

Oh, and I'm only red if I sit in the sun too long...... ;)
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Sixo
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plankton wrote: Fri Dec 27, 2019 9:23 am Feed frozen more often. ;)

Oh, and I'm only red if I sit in the sun too long...... ;)
The frozen has been chosen ;)
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Misty
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Gamma do frozen food with spirulina (which is a natural colour enhancer), I have brine shrimp with spirulina
Also, I think krill is believed to be a natural colour enhancer
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