38 replies to this topic

[Fox]

As some of you know I feed the fish at work a mix of Sera Flora, NLS, Hikari Frozen & Aqua One cichlid pellets until recently.



I have never used Aqua One Cichlids Pellets on my own fish before and never realised it was a color food like White Crane.
Anyway, I started using it in the shop and noticed a couple of species were starting to color, I didn't think anything of it until a few more young cichlids were starting to color.
I have now stopped using the Aqua One pellets as I feel it may lead to females coloring as males, which isn't fair to the buyer if they are buying to breed with. And on the other hand I will have a shop full of "supposed-ed" males.

I was chatting to a couple of customers today about the same thing and they all agreed I should be still using it as it made the fish look great, I told them the above and said it was a great idea for display tanks as your not expecting to breed if it is only display.

Whats your thoughts?

I would like to hear from other shops as well as PCS members.

Cheers
Az

[golden_dase]

To be honest, a fish should colour up when they're happy and have been kept healthy by the fishkeeper. All my fishes are doing well and I don't think the foods that I give them have colour enhancers? Do these have colour enhancers: HBH Vegie flake, Aquotix granules/pellets, Freeze dried bloodworms, Algae pellets. ?

[bradfitzy]

If you look at it from a business point of view , you are supplying a product and most businesses would want that product to be the best it possibly can.
If this means that the fish can be made to look there best then why not do it ..imo.
if you are not causing ill health to the fish nor are you doing unethical practices such as color dying or the like.
Im quite sure Az you nor any of your staff have ever lied about what you are feeding the fish so its not like you are giving any misleading info to customers.

With that in mind , so long as the food is not causing the fish any health issues then i don't see a problem.
As for not being able to tell males from females that is a bit of hit and miss in younger fish anyways ...... i try to purchase fish in lots of 5 or more as to give better odds at getting males or females and believe that more often than not the majority of your customers would do the same.

This is just my opinion and if i were a lfs owner and buy feeding my fish food that can make them look there best without causing them any harm and at the same time being honest to my customers then why not?

Brad

[Fox]

You have some REALLY good points Brad. The fish do look really good & new cichlid customers love the look of them.
To my knowledge its not doing them any harm.

If you look at it from a business point of view , you are supplying a product and most businesses would want that product to be the best it possibly can.

In this respect, We are selling the pellets so why not show the customers what they do.....This would possibly produce more cichlid sales and more pellet sales.

Any other views?

[gibbs]

I have bought fish from LFS's that have been fed colour enhancers and it pissed me off fully when my boys started to fade, lose colour and were actually females.

I think LFS owners have an obligation to the public to sell a fish as it naturally occurs in the wild. To sell a false product because it will help a species sell better is unethical and dishonest. Not to mention a waste of money if a customer is in search of a male.

Looking at it from a business point of view will make you a poor hobbiest!

As for health issues it is thought that added hormones in these foods can lead to shorter life spans, infertility, organ damage, unnatural body shapes particularly in the finnage. Think about it, a female colours up like a male and then gains the long pointy finnage of a male and has a massive growth spurt. Do you think it is being fed hormones naturally produced by a female fish?

Not having a crack at you Az or Midland Aquariums, this is very honest of you.

BTW i think feeding fish these foods and hormones etc for retail purposes is illegal. Unsure of that but from a few discussions iv had around the place i believe it is.

[Golly]

wil this stop breeding because recently i have tryed that exact food that is in that picture but my fish are still getting full

just asking because i dont want it slow down or stop.


cheers

[gibbs]

Very possible

[Fox]

I have bought fish from LFS's that have been fed colour enhancers and it pissed me off fully when my boys started to fade, lose colour and were actually females.

This is my point.. I would be the same. And that is why I decided to stop using it when I found it coloring the fish.

Not having a crack at you Az or Midland Aquariums, this is very honest of you.

Not at all mate, I like to be fully honest with all my customers.


Golly,

No it wont stop them from breeding, I have fish breeding in the shop that are showing male color.

[Golly]

is this just the pellets or the flakes aswell

[Ronny]

As for health issues it is thought that added hormones in these foods can lead to shorter life spans, infertility, organ damage, unnatural body shapes particularly in the finnage. Think about it, a female colours up like a male and then gains the long pointy finnage of a male and has a massive growth spurt. Do you think it is being fed hormones naturally produced by a female fish?

This may be true, but I believe the foods don't actually have hormones in them.

BTW i think feeding fish these foods and hormones etc for retail purposes is illegal. Unsure of that but from a few discussions iv had around the place i believe it is.

This is also true, which is why the foods, imported and sold don't have hormones in them.

[dazzabozza]

I have bought fish from LFS's that have been fed colour enhancers and it pissed me off fully when my boys started to fade, lose colour and were actually females.

Hey Gibbs. Would you be as equally pissed if you bought a heap of younger fish that hadn't coloured as yet and once older all turned out to be the sex u weren't after?? I guess if you were looking at larger / older fish then you'd expect that whatever you I.D. them as should be close to correct. Artificial colouring does add an extra unknown.

From a breeders perspective I'd like to know I'm getting a good M/F ratio (or buy enough so it's to my favour), so not in favour of artificial colouring. From a display fish perspective most people often buy the most stunning coloured males leaving the drab females. Which then potentially leads to a heap of "unknown females" (thinking of the mess peacocks are in now) getting moved into other tanks with other similar fish (aka various fish $xx ea.). So I can see why some shops may want to follow this practice. Listing different prices for coloured males can be a good deterent preventing people from raiding all the males.


Daz

[bradfitzy]

I have bought fish from LFS's that have been fed colour enhancers and it pissed me off fully when my boys started to fade, lose colour and were actually females.

I think LFS owners have an obligation to the public to sell a fish as it naturally occurs in the wild. To sell a false product because it will help a species sell better is unethical and dishonest. Not to mention a waste of money if a customer is in search of a male.

Looking at it from a business point of view will make you a poor hobbyist!

So when you went to the lfs and bought what you thought was a male did you bother to ask them what they fed their fish?
So if you want the fish in the store to be sold as it naturally occurs in the wild then what do you suggest they feed their fish?
If a store is telling you honestly what they are feeding their fish then how are they doing anything unethical or dishonest?
No one is forcing you to buy fish from any particular store so if you don't like what stores are feeding then perhaps you shouldn't buy your fish from there.

Buy not asking a shop what they feed there fish or how often they water change or if the fish have had any recent medications before you hand over your hard earned cash to purchase will more likely make you a poor hobbyist!!

[sandgroper]

I like to get what i pay for NATURALLY.For colour enhancing food thats what display tanks are for.

[Juls]

Firstly the post I'm about to reply is written on my iPhone so it's likely to have a comedy of errors and iPhone automatically incorrect corrections, and as I can't easily see what I'm writing I'm likely to repeat myself, so my apologies in advance

It's all very well for the serious hobbiest to get all upset and cranky about the use of color foods and the theoretical negative side effects.

However the hard cold reality is that most serious hobbiests only make up a small percentage of an aquarium businesses sale and worse still 99% of said hobbiests are by no means lfs loyal.

The average Joe who walks into the local lfs will walk up to a tank and want the best coloured fish in the tank! Without any doubt this will happen almost every time, you can calmly and carefully explain to the customer that the others will colour up in time but it's wasted breath because most people will nod agreeingly but the info is in one ear and out the other.

It's not until you have been in the hobby Many years that you become happy to fork out good money on drab uncoloured unsexable juveniles and have the patience to raise them.

At the end of the day the lights in the shop don't pay for themselves to be on, the rent doesn't pay for itself, the water isn't free.

Be it unethical to use colour foods on fish or not if it means that a a tank of 30 fish sells in 3-4 days instead of 3-4 weeks then the answer is use the food and order more fish to sell or don't and close the doors for good and put all the remaining fish to permanent sleep.

Using the colour foods does not make it impossible to tell the difference between females and males, almost always there is certain parts of the colouration that varys that gives it away, some fish are totally uneffected by these foods where others can lose some of there natural colours.

I rarely see fish that look healthy and fully coloured up in any shops no matter how good the shop may be and if i do often it is a fish that has just been traded in.

I personally have traded in beautiful colored up fish only to see them
lose all there colour within a week in the dealers tanks then sit there and not sell.

Colour foods become a useful tool to mask stressed or drab looking fish making them thousands of percent more saleable.

The problem is not the retailer sneekily using these tricks to sell there fish at all.

The real problem comes down to that everyone wants the pretty fish, everyone wants the fish with the best colour.

You might be thinking at this point bulls*** I never do that! Well your a minority of
the customer base the average aquarium shop experiences.

Many aquarium fish can feel stressed and fail to display there true colors in a retailers tank.
Much of this can be due to the inability or failure of the retailer to provide suitable surroundings
for the fish to feel safe.

This is not always the fault of the retailer, the reality is that a holding tank must be 1. Easy to catch fish in. 2. Easy to
maintain and 3. Easy for customers to view the fish.

A bare tank is ideal in this scenario, but for most fish some type of substrate and some rocks or plants would provide them with the security they need to display there real colours.

If your like me you know a aquascaped tank is near impossible to catch fish in, and really you can't be busting up your scapes twice a day to catch fish. The other problem is that decorations would provide hiding places for the fish so customers might not even be able to
see the fish for sale.

So we return to the problem dull fish are hard to sell,

options
1. Aquascaped tanks
2. Use colour foods
3. Use a combination of colour foods for certain fish and aquascaped tanks for others

For me it makes total sense to use colour foods on cheaper more readily available fish, and fish
likely to be kept by beginners and are either unlikely to be bred or are not worthwhile breeding.

For the rarer and harder to keep fish the hobbiest will know what they are looking at so they should
have enough sense to know these fish will colour up given the right environment.

With these rarer and more expensive fish rather than using foods that the hobbiest might take offence to
these tanks could have some basic aquascaping to allow the fish to feel more comfortable and show it's natural colours.

Again I will repeat this, the problem is not that shops might use colour foods to artificially colour there fish,
the problem is that 99% of customers want the prettiest fish in the tank.

Next time your at the lfs think about that, stand back and ask for the dull fish that are not coloured yet.
If you don't then your only forcing the shop owners hand back into the colour foods!

Juls

[Ronny]

Some very good points raised there and all valid Juls.

I think, if a store is using colour enhancers to help promote the fish, that's up to then and I see no problem with that.

Provided the person selling them explains to someone wanting a certain sex, colour or whatever, explains that they are fed a colour enhancing food and there is no guarantee on the sex.

Having said that though, I doubt any of the sponsors, or retailers that could actually tell the sex of a certain fish would refuse to trade another if you knew for sure it wasn't the sex you requested.

[Mr_docfish]

If you want to buy uncoloured peacocks, then you dont know what ratio of sexes you will get.... if you buy coloured peacocks, you still dont know what ratio of sexes you will get...
BUT...
You buy uncoloured peacocks, you dont know with 100% certainty what species you are getting... with coloured peacocks you are 100% sure that what you are buying is the actual species and in particular, the right colour strain (eg: Orange vs Red)

The colour food will not render the fish infertile (stay off the food for two weeks, and the fish will breed again) UNLESS it is abused and fed daily for months (will cause some reproductive problems in some species)..... fed once or twice a week, and you will find the males colouring up a bit better/earlier, and the females will still look like females and will still breed.

The shops that feed it to their fish (not to all fish, only some species for identification and selling purposes) should offer a guarantee of sex if the intent is to breed them (get to sell extra 'drab' females in this case, so no one looses)
In the case where to buyer is after all males - well if they were all uncoloured, then the ratio sold will be the same, so no gain or loss = null argument....... solution - buy this food.

The food will enhance the immune system of the fish - an advantage if you intend to stress it out with catching and transport.

Trying to make the commercial tank look like a home aquarium is not in anyones best interest.... get a plain tank full of Pseudotropheus sp, and the next day, you will still have a full tank of healthy fish - put in a rock, and the next day, you will have one very angry male pushing around the rest of the tank inhabitants who are tattered and torn.... all because now there is a rock to fight over....
Then, try to catch a particular fish out of a home aquarium (without stressing every inhabitant and re-arranging the whole tank just to find the one bugger...) this is much easier when there are no obstacles....and less stressed fish.

These foods do not contain hormones - to prove it, try feeding it on other fish besides cichlids, and see if you can make males out of them..... Elevated levels of vitamin D3 can have an effect on the natural production of testosterone in some fish - (but I will bring up info on that later) and in combination with other products in the food, can bring out such and effect in cichlids.... even NLS have high levels of D3 (D-Activated Animal Sterols) but not as high as White Crane or the food mentioned above.

Used correctly, and wisely, these foods can assist both retailer and customer alike... just dont abuse it.

[werdna]

I dont see the issue at all.
Shops have to try to sell the fish to everyone.
How many everyday off the street customers would buy EBs or Peacocks if none were coloured up?
Why do EYs sell so easy? Cos they are all bright yellow. Simple.
Use it Az. Your goal at the end of the day is to sell a product to make an income.
You gotta do what you gotta do to increase sales. Put stickers around saying what you feed the fish, people will buy the food as well.
Thats business.

Andrew

[smellsfishy]

does this food have long term effects? like say u take them off the food does i slowly wear off or leave a little enhanced colour?

[Juls]

does this food have long term effects? like say u take them off the food does i slowly wear off or leave a little enhanced colour?

theoretically after a week or two the colour food itself will wear off, however
the colour would only dissapear if the fish is being kept in conditions where it is stressed an unable to show it's natural colours.

Be it the water conditions, poor environmental conditions or it is being heavily bullied.

Some fish only show these colours as intensly when in breeding condition or if they are the leader within the heirachy within the social system of the tank.

Each fish is effected slightly differently by these foods but it needs to be said they cannot turn a fish a colour they where never genetically capable of. Ie a fish that was always only blue cannot be turned red by feeding a red specific colour food.

Juls

[nick05]

My opinion is Az you're a responsible hobbyist you know what is good for fish, if you want to use it, use it. So long as you're up front about it.

And what I really wanted to say is Juls that is a mammoth effort typing that out on the iphone, I use my for browsing only cos cbf typing in forums on it!