artificial coloring

Question
i just purchased barbs that happened to go through an artificial color treatment. I was quite amazed when the store had the regular kind right next to the treated ones. The regular ones had a really pale orange color while the ones i bought were bright red and green. The store manager told me that they lose that color after 4-5 months and return to their natural stage. That also explaines why my fruit tetras got drastically paler after 4 months of having them. Therefore I was wondering if i could purchase that kind of hormonal enhancers to dunk my fish in to replenish the color they started off with once again. (apparently it does not hurt them)

Answer
Hi Nargis;

It depends on what kind of fish you are talking about. If they are dyed an unnatural color all over or are 'painted glassfish', it isn't a hormone or a color enhancer at all. It is actually a very cruel process that kills many of the fish that are subjected to it. Some fish are actually injected with tiny needles (painted glassfish) and other types are placed in a chemical solution that burns the slime coating off of them so the dye will "take" and are then placed in a very strong dye bath for coloring. The mortality rate is often as high as 80% in both types of coloring.

Here are some websites that explains more;

http://honors.montana.edu/~weif/firsttank/painted.phtml
http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/beginnerinfo/a/paintedfish.htm
http://www.bellaonline.org/articles/art7686.asp
http://www.fishzine.com/message/archive/messages2/1993.html

There are many fish that already have reddish or orange coloring on them naturally that can be enhanced by feeding color foods that are perfectly safe to use. But, the fish has to already have this natural coloring. It just isn't as brightuntil they are fed the special foods for 3 weeks or so. Cherry barbs, goldfish, swordtails, platies, bettas, gouramis and some tetras are a few of the fish that will respond to this food.

I personally refuse to buy dyed fish and recommend others do the same. Hopefully it will reduce the demand and lessen the frequency of this horribly cruel practice. I don't think it will ever really stop because of the money made on it, but educating the public is very helpful. Most customers are like you and are simply lied to or just not told how the fish got those colors. I hope you will educate others too.

Followups welcome

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins

Come on over and join us on the freshwater fish forum at About.com to get even more information too;
http://freshaquarium.about.com/od/questionsanswers/a/naavigateforum.htm

My member name is ChrisR62. See You There!