I fed hormones to my fish. Outcome is amazing.

[bluelagoon]

What came to my mind was that those fish would have colored up naturally just by getting older.2 months coloring on a young fish can change a fear bit as they get more mature.

[CliffsDiscus]

Hi Al, The packaging does not indicate the chemical compounds used. The letter R for red and B for blue pigmentation. There are some Thai writing on the back side to tell you how much to use. Basically one pack 5g for half kilo of food. In my case I just used the whole pack into one pound of beefheart along with krill and flakes. I'm just looking at some of the fish being imported as Flamma Rossa 3.5". How is that full red color possible at that size? My untreated juveniles are the same size and don't have any red at all. No disrepect to any resellers, but the supply side from overseas is up to fishy business.Attachment 90945

Those are CR5 for the Blue and CR6 for the Reds, they sell them on Road 39 in Bangkok. Your package is old usually in 2 weeks the Discus would be fully Red.
Also sold are what they call Super Red pellets and granule they will color the Discus up in one week.

CLiff

[Filip]

Those are CR5 for the Blue and CR6 for the Reds, they sell them on Road 39 in Bangkok. Your package is old usually in 2 weeks the Discus would be fully Red.
Also sold are what they call Super Red pellets and granule they will color the Discus up in one week.

CLiff

Sounds like you have try them Cliff,so if you stop feeding them will they remain red , or gradually pale . are you supposed to feed them only few weeks or constantly for them to remain colloured

[krislewis3]

What's a fiamma rossa? Lol

image.jpg


The above photo is one of the fiamma-rossa's which I purchased in June of this year! Are you saying that it was hormon fed to look this way?

[Eddie]

image.jpg


The above photo is one of the fiamma-rossa's which I purchased in June of this year! Are you saying that it was hormon fed to look this way?

Looks like a red gold diamond. I wouldn't say it was hormone fed at all.

[krislewis3]

What is the explanation as to why he's so brilliantly colored at 2.5"

[nc0gnet0]

What is the explanation as to why he's so brilliantly colored at 2.5"

He was fed color enhancers, not hormones, the two are vastly different. Prolonged use of hormones would be idiotic and harm the fish. That said I still believe the packages in question are not hormones at all, rather nothing more than potent color enhancers. As Al said, hormones fool the fish into thinking the fish is reaching sexual maturity, the time in which the fish begins to display color vibrantly.

Picture a pre-adolescent teen. When he or she starts to reach puberty their pituitary gland starts to produce hormones. If we inject a 8 year old boy with testosterone, he will begin to grow facial hair etc. This is what hormones is doing to a fish.

The fact the packages come in both a blue and red version is a very strong clue as to what it actually is, color enhancers, not hormones. A true hormone would be the same, regardless of the color of the fish. The only minute possibility is that the packages contain both, color enhancers and hormones, but even this is still not very likely IMO. A dry form feedable hormone with a shelf life of 10 years would be pretty pricey. This is most likely nothing more than a bit of false advertising on the part of the retailor.

[Eddie]

What is the explanation as to why he's so brilliantly colored at 2.5"

Selective breeding

[walton321]

At the end of the day, regardless of whether they are true hormones or dyes, people are driving up demand for artificially colored fish (not just discus). The creators of all the colorful discus blew their own covers for releasing fully colored pre-juvenile fish for sale. For people to call them "strains" is misleading, because it is not genetics nor hereditary at all. I know alot of people are in denial that their beautiful fish are not really that colorful without enhancers. There are still alot of beautiful unmolested discus out there like snow whites, albino cobalts, blue turquoise, wilds, etc.. But the sale of all these crazy-named juiced up discus has gotten out of hand along with the inflated prices. BTW here's a current picture of the female (left fish in first post) a year later. IMG_4155.jpg

[nc0gnet0]

At the end of the day, regardless of whether they are true hormones or dyes, people are driving up demand for artificially colored fish (not just discus). The creators of all the colorful discus blew their own covers for releasing fully colored pre-juvenile fish for sale. For people to call them "strains" is misleading, because it is not genetics nor hereditary at all. I know alot of people are in denial that their beautiful fish are not really that colorful without enhancers. There are still alot of beautiful unmolested discus out there like snow whites, albino cobalts, blue turquoise, wilds, etc.. But the sale of all these crazy-named juiced up discus has gotten out of hand along with the inflated prices.

Ok, this is way over the top, perhaps a little bit of truth sprinkled with a whole lot of BS.

[Ryan]

At the end of the day, regardless of whether they are true hormones or dyes, people are driving up demand for artificially colored fish (not just discus). The creators of all the colorful discus blew their own covers for releasing fully colored pre-juvenile fish for sale. For people to call them "strains" is misleading, because it is not genetics nor hereditary at all. I know alot of people are in denial that their beautiful fish are not really that colorful without enhancers. There are still alot of beautiful unmolested discus out there like snow whites, albino cobalts, blue turquoise, wilds, etc.. But the sale of all these crazy-named juiced up discus has gotten out of hand along with the inflated prices.

I think you're conflating hormones and color enhancers. Almost every commercial fish food on the market contains color enhancers, so any prepared foods you get are going to "juice" up your wild or turquoise discus in the same way they would any other variety.

Having said that, there are plenty of very red and very blue discus out there which do color up at sexual maturity and hold their color. Genetics do play a part in that. Fish are being selectively bred for their potential to color up, their potential to be clean (in pigeon types), their potential to have certain patterns... it's how you go the classic varieties you listed. At some point in the past, turquoise and red turquoise discus were probably considered abominations compared to wilds. But those fish were selectively bred for a specific set of traits, and those traits were fixed to become the strains we know today. That is still going on with breeders around the world.

What a lot of breeders do is feed synthetic astaxanthin or other color enhancers in food to young fish a couple weeks before sale so that the fish intensify. They may fade a bit if you stop feeding foods that contain enhancers, but they should color up again as they mature and their adult coloration comes in. However, I've watched a lot of yellow fish turn orange because people feed commercial foods that are loaded with astaxanthin (either natural or synthetic) and they don't even realize it. It's in almost every ingredient list. So it's all probably a moot point unless you go out of your way to avoid them.

[Michael A]

is discus pellet contains hormon? I feed mine with "Hikari Discus Bio Gold". What is the long term effect of prolonged hormon use to the fish?

[Willie]

No, discus pellets do not contain hormone.

[Michael A]

glad to know that im not feeding my fish hormone.

[smsimcik]

Man, how I miss the experienced discus people on here like Rick, Ryan and John Nicholson. These old threads are great. Thank goodness Willie is still around. Lol.