Matt_95 Posted May 14, 2012 Report Share Posted May 14, 2012 I have been trialling the new aqua munch food this year and so far the results have been nothing short of amazing, the fish love it, everything is healthy and the angles are growing faster than the last food I had them on. I am using the colour enhancing food, it's the same as the community pellets but it contains astaxanthin. Some people claim it turns female fish male or makes them sterile, as well as many other claims, I've done research and have decided that I think it does no harm based upon what I have read and the people I have spoken to. So anyway, I lost my betta pellets a week or so ago so I started using the aquamunch food on my bettas and they love the food and their colour is also amazing, the albimarginata male is always in breeding colours and the salamander male's red is far more saturated than it previously has been and the yellow grizzle is also a much darker yellow. Does anyone else use colour enhancers on their bettas and what are people's thoughts on this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lachie1998 Posted May 14, 2012 Report Share Posted May 14, 2012 i think astaxanthin is a natural ingrediant. if they were colour enhancers i dont think they would be allowed into the country. this is like fh food some foods arent allowed in as they contain hormones ect...... i dont see how is can change the sex of the fish :confused: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul Posted May 14, 2012 Report Share Posted May 14, 2012 I've never looked at the constituents to be honest Matt. Hikari micropellets is all I use at the moment seeing as the smaller fish and the largest of my betta can all get their fill and not look like they are choking on the larger cheeper pellets. I probably wouldn't recognise a colour enhancer unless it sai "colour enhancer" next to it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarah Posted May 14, 2012 Report Share Posted May 14, 2012 I'm the same with Paul, unless it said outright that it enhances colour, I wouldn't know. Sure, I do read the ingredient list from time to time, but if I was entirely honest - if I read astaxanthin I would just nod my head. I have various dry betta food, I rotate between them all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt_95 Posted May 14, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 14, 2012 i think astaxanthin is a natural ingrediant. if they were colour enhancers i dont think they would be allowed into the country. this is like fh food some foods arent allowed in as they contain hormones ect...... i dont see how is can change the sex of the fish Yea it is natural, it's derived from algae I believe. Well it colours up female peacock cichlids and the "lovely" people on another forum with a less than good reputation believe that constitutes a sex change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul Posted May 14, 2012 Report Share Posted May 14, 2012 Dunno what you're referring to, but surely people realise that you need to go through a lot more than just putting on a little lippy to change sex! LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yanagi Posted May 14, 2012 Report Share Posted May 14, 2012 Weren't you constantly going off about people using colour enhancers on cichlids a while ago, Matt...? Make no mistake, hormone based colour enhancers are definitely in this country. I feed my Discus tank on TetraColour Granules alone, it's a natural colour enhancer. I'm happy with it's performance, but that said, that's all these fish have ever gotten and they refuse to eat any other dry food so I'd be up fish poo creek without a paddle if I went and blew my money on some other food like I did last week. NLS Discus food for sale.. lmao. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt_95 Posted May 14, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 14, 2012 Oh and sometimes sub dominant males in peacock cichlids can appear to be females and that is also mistaken as a gender change. Trust me, you have to have read posts on that forum to understand how brain numbing it is. Weren't you constantly going off about people using colour enhancers on cichlids a while ago, Matt...? I may have said something about LFS doing it to boost sales? That does annoy me at times yes since you don't know how they will look without the use of strong colour enhancers such as white crane, a very concentrated enhancer... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lachie1998 Posted May 14, 2012 Report Share Posted May 14, 2012 if it is a natural ingrediant then i think it would be fine. but i think it will work the best with your red based fish as astaxanthin is a red algae. lol i need to get some betta food before i buy some bettas haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt_95 Posted May 14, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 14, 2012 Oh I wasn't wondering about if it will affect their health, I never had a doubt about that. Yes I had noticed that, it's only bringing out the reds, yellow and oranges in them so it has very little effect on the angels besides some yellow patterning on the philopean pairs dorsals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afr3178 Posted May 14, 2012 Report Share Posted May 14, 2012 Paprika is a natural colour enhancer. I dont know what effect it has on bettas but I have seen what it does to oscars. There is a guy that splits his oscar spawns in half and feeds half the food with paprika and the other half just normal food. The ones with the paprika get their red much quicker and younger while the other ones don't get it until they develop it naturally. So they can sell some as tiger oscars and the other as red tiger oscars. I would like to research this a bit more, but don't know if it would be okay for betta. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yanagi Posted May 14, 2012 Report Share Posted May 14, 2012 Interesting, a little hint I picked up a while ago was feeding paprika to black horses to stop them fading out to a brown in summer. Keeps them nice and dark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zui Posted May 14, 2012 Report Share Posted May 14, 2012 Colour enhancing has been going on for years with birds. Stop feeding red factor canaries red factor food and they turn yellow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bettarazzi Posted May 14, 2012 Report Share Posted May 14, 2012 So if you feed to bettas you want to make sure they're red otherwise it will enhance the red wash? LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt_95 Posted May 14, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 14, 2012 Or yellow or orange, it doesn't do anything for the blue or metallic colours, it actually makes the blue seems less on my salamander now the red has become deeper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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