Ember Tetra Colour

[90FScaper]

I have just purchased a small batch of Ember Tetras from my lfs. They are a much brighter orange than my first batch bought from a different store! Does anyone know why this might be the case?
Thanks

 

[Chez_]

I have a little shoal.of eight and I do notice their colour goes up and down depending on what I feed them. In particular Tetra Min seems to bring the colour up.

 

[Maf 2500]

Maybe just different strains with different amounts of red pigmentation, or maybe the ones at the fish shop were fed with colour enhancing food to boost the red/orange?

 

[G mac]

I can’t get Embers to colour up in my tank.. I’ve had them from different sources but they all remained pale, despite being in a densely planted aquarium and fed good quality foods.🙁

 

[Maf 2500]

Given their natural habitat, they might also colour better in soft, low TDS, water vs hard water.

 

[tam]

They usually come pale and colour up. If the second batch came coloured up, sounds like they liked the tank they came from. It will be interesting if they keep the colour or become pale. If your orginals haven't coloured up there is something not optimum, if your running CO2 it may be a bit high for them, you could try adding oxygen at night. Good quality foods inc. live foods can help. They are a softer water species, but not super fussy so hard might be less than ideal but soft to medium ok.

 

[Cazza]

I was a little disappointed that my Lemon Tetras weren't colouring up (apart from one). It took a good couple of months, but they seemed to colour up almost instantly after I did a bit of a rescape.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

They are a much brighter orange than my first batch bought from a different store! Does anyone know why this might be the case?

In particular Tetra Min seems to bring the colour up.

... If the second batch came coloured up, sounds like they liked the tank they came from. It will be interesting if they keep the colour or become pale. If your orginals haven't coloured up there is something not optimum

maybe the ones at the fish shop were fed with colour enhancing food to boost the red/orange?

Assuming they aren't in a really brightly lit tank, I think it is <"largely a food issue">. I'm going to assume that "Tetra Min" contains carotenoid pigments and these are the pigments that make Flamingos (and Salmon flesh) pink.

cheers Darrel

 

[Luciën]

Assuming they aren't in a really brightly lit tank, I think it is <"largely a food issue">. I'm going to assume that "Tetra Min" contains carotenoid pigments and these are the pigments that make Flamingos (and Salmon flesh) pink.

This is most likely.

Yes in almost all stores fish look quite plain. Best thing is to look if they are healthy and well fed, no visual forms of decease. Here all my fish colour up nicely with a good diet of color enhancing dry foods and frozen food also if they came from different stores with time there is no difference noticeable.