Foods to enhance Blue Colours?

[k1w1y2k]

I have read that there are things like paprika that can be add to BH to help enhance red colours. Is there anything that can be add to enhance blue in Turq's and Cobolts?

[Eddie]

I have read that there are things like paprika that can be add to BH to help enhance red colours. Is there anything that can be add to enhance blue in Turq's and Cobolts?


I remember reading something about oatmeal but really the best thing to enhance blue is a well rounded diet. A good pellet or flake with vitamins/minerals should do the trick, or your own mix with some good veggies/vitamins. ;)


Eddie

[k1w1y2k]

Thanks, I use Tetra Bits in the mornings and a BH/PH mix in the evening. I just didn't know if there was something else I could add.

[Ibenu]

There is not Additives that I could find for Blue, (yellow and red there are a bunch..)

However due to my fascination guppy genetics, I have a bit of knowledge about where blue comes from and as such I would say you can only bring it to its full potential, unlike yellows and reds that can be artificially/enhanced with additives..

http://guppydesigner.com/images/stories/color_bank/guppy_color_system.png
(www.guppiedesigner.com is where the above is)

The melanophores are what is responsible for the "blue" and green when it shines through yellow, and violet when it shines through red and so on...through to black.

Calcium (Ca2)has caused pigment aggregation (1), now how calcium can be introduced by us fish keepers is unknown to me, dietary, in water column I do not know.

Koi keepers know that without calcium,(2) the hormone enhancers they use to increase value/grade/colour will not work!!

Calcium ions are cited(3) over and over as the necessity for aggregation (the concentration of the pigment viewable to us as the dense colour)

So that's where my contribution ends and I hope getting more calcium ions into our fish will be where someone else picks up:)




(1 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T2P-4859DRM-36&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F1988&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1389929916&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=742156ac71caebad1c9a77d7bbded528
(2)http://www.northidahokoikeepers.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/scalespresentation.pdf
(3)http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T2P-4859DRM-36&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F1988&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1389929916&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=742156ac71caebad1c9a77d7bbded528
(* paper on melatonin increasing pigment aggregation (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B73F3-4CDB4R7-TV&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F1989&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1389945388&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=3fbf9779743aaec439f41f449b42eb0f) )

[roclement]

Great find on this information! Thanks!

SERA makes two flakes for enhancing colors in discus, one is for blue, the other for red. Oddly enough a friend of mine uses them with his show guppies and loves them! Go figure!

Maybe I should give it a try!

Rodrigo

[nc0gnet0]

Koi keepers know that without calcium,(2) the hormone enhancers they use to increase value/grade/colour will not work!!

In my own personal expeirance with KOI, the two greatest color enhancers I know of are 1) sunlight and 2) algea (spirulina). Spirulina seems particulary effective in the yellow/red spectrum. I can't comment on blue, as, well, I have never seen a blue koi.

I over wintered several koi in a large aquarium. I fed them Hikari gold, eventually there colors all dimiished to the point yellows where white etc. They were not in poor health however and there growth rate over the winter was phenonminal. After one month back outdoors their colors were vibrant to the point they were glowing. The diet did not change with the exception of the KOI were free to munch on the abundant string algea (not free floating I use UV).

I also witnessed this phenonmenom in late fall just before I brought the last of them inside. As most of you know, when the water temperatures drop below 50 degrees, Koi stop getting fed. They do however continue to eat, and they only thing available to them is the algea growing on the sides of the pond liner. I had a lonely pair of orange/ white shubumkins that I was going to leave in the pond for the winter, but had a change of heart. I netted them and began a slow acclimation to warmer water. I could'nt help but notice the bright yellow highlights these shubumkin had developed, and there orange was glowing. I also wittnessed quite a bit of bright green poo, which confirmed a diet of algea.

So, I think one thing that may get overlooked in the color enhancing picture is our lighting. Second, I think spirlina may be a tad bit under utilized.

[William Palumbo]

I've yet to try the blue enhancing foods. But basically Spirulina and Nori, both types of algae will enhance, to a degree, the blue coloration...Bill

[kaceyo]

I agree with Ibenu. There are no effective blue color enhancers, though there are foods that claim to do so. Testosterone will bring out and enhance blue though it works in a different way than what we think of as color enhancers and is not recommended.
Good health via the usual means is the best way to get the best blue colors.

[Ed13]

I'm still in awe of what sunlight can do to fish colors! I want to expose discus sometime to it, just so uncontrollable it makes me nervous:o