# Juvies all colored from a local store, w/ pics



## slater32 (Apr 27, 2015)

Ok, I don't have a ton of experience but have been to lots of local fish stores & never seen anything like I've seen tonight..
I did purchase 3 juvinille fish that are 2" max which is hard to tell from the pics, these fish were $5 each so I'm not out anything if they turn out to be females or hybrids of some sort.
The store owner was upfront & says they are colored due to the food they feed. He gave me an 8oz tub of food for free, genuine nice guy without getting into too much detail.
So I saw entire tanks of very small fish totally colored-up. They all can't be males, so do these color enhancing "crack" type food even color-up female fish so theres really o way of knowing if I have a legit male right now?
From my untrained eye I went in buying a Baenschi, German Red /Aulonocara (Rubescent), & an OB,
He had various other haps & peacocks but I was skeptical so I didn't want to go to town. Was contemplating a Sulfur Head but really not into the coloration of them so I decided against it. Just went with 3...
I have a tank full off bicolor 500 & a few fish are almost this size & there is zero glimpse of any possible coloration at this point.
Thoughts on food, what I've got myself into, & if these appear to be pure ?
The pic with the 4 fish, the far right fish is my 4" Usisya Flav
The newly purchased fish appear larger in the pics due to close-up shots, I paid $5 per fish.






Am I over reacting????


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Hormoned females can look like males and the males can color young. Hormoned food is harmful to the fish though...I would not continue to feed it.


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## slater32 (Apr 27, 2015)

DJRansome said:


> Hormoned females can look like males and the males can color young. Hormoned food is harmful to the fish though...I would not continue to feed it.


Never second guessed you're thoughts or advice DJRansome & won't start now..
Makes sense along with the research I've just done after you confirmed my somewhat thoughts I find that it may not only be color enhancing additives but actual testosterone.. "your hormoned comment"
While I was there saw some awfully juvie looking fish doing the mating flutter.
Another learning experience, so stop feeding them the pellets & watch them loose their color...
I should have stuck with the original Dave plan :roll:


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## slater32 (Apr 27, 2015)

Photos they sent me to peak my interest:


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

Color enhancing food vs. hormoned food should be two different things, at least in North America. What brand food did he give you, if you know?


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## slater32 (Apr 27, 2015)

Deeda said:


> Color enhancing food vs. hormoned food should be two different things, at least in North America. What brand food did he give you, if you know?


Sorry thought I commented in my original post. Food was pre packaged from bulk in an 8oz. tub with just the store name label on it. I know there's color enhanced food vs hormone food but when you have a breeder tank with all fish colored. How do you determine what's really going on...
I plan on emailing them & asking them about the food & see what they say...
There price on the food is relatively cheap $5 for 8oz tub, its al small pellet type dark rust red in color.
I do remember the owner saying something about "ginseng" but that could be just a line of bs.
He saws his fish are imported from Taiwan & Thailand I think, not like that matters though.


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## Narwhal72 (Sep 26, 2006)

Most Asian imports are fed hormoned food. It's a common practice overseas.

A color enhancing food will only make existing colors more intense. It will not cause a male to color up at an early age or a female to color up at all.

Hormoned foods will cause males to color up before they are sexually mature and females to take on male coloration. Even short term exposure to excessive hormone levels can cause sterilization in both male and female (particularly female) fish.


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## noki (Jun 13, 2003)

slater32 said:


> Deeda said:
> 
> 
> > Color enhancing food vs. hormoned food should be two different things, at least in North America. What brand food did he give you, if you know?
> ...


Not sure if this seller is ignorant or just doesn't care, but he borders on a con-man. This is a dubious practice... this guy knows the hormoned fish will sell and cares little about the hobby.


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## TTUhouston (Jul 22, 2013)

Those are some impressive looking fish!! This has always been a topic that I find it hard to get much information on. Because of that I stick to NLS style pellets even if they are homemade from smaller retailers. I wish that there was a way to legitimately get them to color like this!


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## jw85 (Dec 24, 2013)

noki said:


> slater32 said:
> 
> 
> > Deeda said:
> ...


I just have to second this. Experienced people know juvenile haps and peacocks don't show this kind of color without hormones or dying. Its also why 0 fish in my tank are from a local store.


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## slater32 (Apr 27, 2015)

jw85 said:


> I just have to second this. Experienced people know juvenile haps and peacocks don't show this kind of color without hormones or dying. Its also why 0 fish in my tank are from a local store.


This was a large fish warehouse / farm, "We are an importer of Quality Fancy Goldfish, and Tropical Fish for Wholesale and Retail."
This wasn't a Petco or Petsmart...
Even Dave is a LFS to someone....
I knew something was up but I have read & seen videos of how color enhancing foods can do wonders but get it & I did question the owner....
*** been to every local store & know a few very involved cichlid garage breeders locally that do tank maint & have.
The Baenschi looks legit to my untrained eye other than being on testo for first months of its life.....  
My other half wanted to buy every fish in the store & I straight-up told her something aint right & want to do my research before we buy additional fish.
Just crazzzzzy to me that someone local would continue to do this is being that they get a ton of customer exposure would imagine they would get called out on it eventually even though not illegal.
Have seen lots of positive reviews on there yelp page & just shows how many people they are fooling...

Emailed them just now.
Played the roll & told them how great the fish were doing...
Told them I was feeding all my fish the pellets & wanted the ingredient make-up & what actual ingr. enhances the coloration.
Just to see what sort of bs reply Ill get I guess.
Will update when I get a reply, if I do..


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Dave is not an LFS...they don't do walk in sales.

Even if I buy from an LFS, I usually know the wholesaler they buy from. It's a good practice to ask where the fish are imported from...Germany is a good source. They take their cichlids seriously there!


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## slater32 (Apr 27, 2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4m27QC ... freload=10


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## wortel87 (Apr 15, 2014)

Sad so sad.

Pure animal abuse. It should be illegal.


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## Greg92056 (Jul 16, 2014)

Pretty sure I know the store you're talking about. I had to run down to the border last week and stopped in on my way home. I figured for $5 each they had to be unsexed juvies, but they were all showing color at less than 2". I asked if they were all male and was assured they were. I was tempted to grab a few, but something just didn't seem right... I had forgotten that their ad says imported from Thailand. I'll be interested to see how the color lasts in your fish. I liked the shop, and the people there were very nice.


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## slater32 (Apr 27, 2015)

Greg92056 said:


> Pretty sure I know the store you're talking about. I had to run down to the border last week and stopped in on my way home. I figured for $5 each they had to be unsexed juvies, but they were all showing color at less than 2". I asked if they were all male and was assured they were. I was tempted to grab a few, but something just didn't seem right... I had forgotten that their ad says imported from Thailand. I'll be interested to see how the color lasts in your fish. I liked the shop, and the people there were very nice.


Greg
Thats the place.....
The older man "the main owner" was a very nice man but it is what it is...
How nice can he be if he wants to sell me juiced fish...
He is hard to understand but I asked the same questions & he told me they were all colored due to the food & the males are a bit more vibrant than the females. He told me they were still mixed...
That being said there's only one thing that would make a female fish color as much as a male.
They replyed to my email & stated they didn't have any info for me on the food make-up & needed to call & talk to xxxxxx
Will be a week on Sunday & so far I can't see any fade in color but think its to soon.


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## noki (Jun 13, 2003)

These glowing juvies are quite attractive. And they sell. That is all he cares about. To be honest, most fish and house plants sold to the public do poorly and die within a year.

It would be in an interesting experiment if you could feed the hormoned food and see how the fish look over their lifetime, or if they even live for years. The hormoned food is not readily available as far as I know. Maybe for a reason, since the fish do not do well. If this easy hormone gimmick was that easy, why isn't it widespread... buy the fish and the special food, watch the fish glow spectacularly... there would be a good marketing angle like the glo-fish. I assume that this hormone gimmick trick can only be used short term.
Hobbyists who learn to have an interest in the cichlids have more of an interest in the fish beyond a gimmick cheat, it is fun and rewarding to watch the fish color up with natural behavior.


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## slater32 (Apr 27, 2015)

noki said:


> These glowing juvies are quite attractive. And they sell. That is all he cares about. To be honest, most fish and house plants sold to the public do poorly and die within a year.
> 
> It would be in an interesting experiment if you could feed the hormoned food and see how the fish look over their lifetime, or if they even live for years. The hormoned food is not readily available as far as I know. Maybe for a reason, since the fish do not do well. If this easy hormone gimmick was that easy, why isn't it widespread... buy the fish and the special food, watch the fish glow spectacularly... there would be a good marketing angle like the glo-fish. I assume that this hormone gimmick trick can only be used short term.
> Hobbyists who learn to have an interest in the cichlids have more of an interest in the fish beyond a gimmick cheat, it is fun and rewarding to watch the fish color up with natural behavior.


I was given a large 8oz tub of the food for free. Wish we had the means of getting an analysis to know for sure...Just to know!
Would imagine if they are dealing with the same fish supplier in Thailand who regularly doses all their fish stock the US supplier would have easy access to order the food from them for his own use.


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## slater32 (Apr 27, 2015)

I should have known better & was def enticed into buying some beautiful falsely colored fish...
Could it be? What have I stumbled upon? 
No good....
A good read for those new to the hobby:
Raging Hormones ... Real Color ... Or Not?

By Keegan Armke (11-99)
Have you ever bought a beautifully colored fish for your aquarium only to disappointingly watch the colors disappear after a month or two? 
This seems to be a common and increasing concern among many of the aquarists with which we deal. It is a good thing that these hobbyists are not putting up with these color-enhanced fish. Enhancing the colors of the fish to artificial proportions is done by feeding fish food treated with hormones or similar chemical ingredients. 
Feeding safe, quality foods may definitely improve the color and health and breeding capabilities of fish. But it does not allow for the brilliant coloration of females and immature juveniles which would not otherwise exhibit such colors. 
Recently I made a personal visit to a store which had a display of brilliantly colored cichlids. These were Malawi fish about an inch long overall. Odd! Especially odd was a tank of the quite rare Otopharynx lithobates Zimbawe. Every single juvenile in the tank exhibited a glowing purple coloration with a full yellow blaze that would have done justice to the finest adult show male of this variety. With more than suspicion, I asked the store owner how this group of fish had been able to obtain such unreal coloration. When he replied that they had arrived to his store with this coloration, I explained that our business (Armke's Rare Aquarium Fish) was the original importer of these O. lithobates Zimbawe that were swimming in his tank...and that these fish definitely did not arrive so colored. (This fish, in our considerable experience, must reach at least two inches before the first hints of "coloration" is shown by males of the species.)
The store owner then admitted that the fish had been fed a "special" new food that was giving his fish lots of artificial color. His reason for feeding the "enhancement" food: Other stores were doing it and he had to compete.
There is a reason why mother nature wants certain juvenile fish uncolored. At small size, the bland camouflage color makes it easier for them to hide and to grow into adults. It is always best to not try and change the natural process. 
This artificial color flake also takes its toll on adult fish. We had a customer contact us and ask if a Copadichromis azureus female looks like the male. Of course, it doesn't...naturally. Although fish food high in carotene such as krill and relatives can cause natural enhancement of certain colors in juveniles and females of some species, the affect is not at all the same as the use of artificial hormones. I told the customer to wait about a month, and then to get back with us. Later the customer called back with the startling news that the brightly colored "pair" of azureus he had bought were now two drab females. Hormones!
When fed to adult fish, this hormone flake can make the fish actual seem to glow with color, only to darken and never regain natural color once the treatment has ceased. The enhancing ingredients also can cause the fish to become infertile, thus unable to reproduce. In extreme instances, we understand it can cause fish fatalities.
At Armke's, we neither offer hormone-enhanced fish nor condone the practice. There are natural, humane ways to obtain quality in captive fishes. To obtain maximum natural coloration, we would probably advise using wild-caught parents to produce F1 (first generation) fry...then to maintain the fry in uncrowded conditions with frequent partial water changes...and fed with a nicely varied diet of quality flake foods and live baby brine shrimp. You might be surprised at the results you can achive, but never, never, never will every single fish from the spawn attain bright unnatural color!
When next you are enticed to buy that spectacularly colored little fish that you deep-down know has too much color to be true...don't.

How to Identify Treated Fish
1. Be wary of any tank of fish where all specimens of a single species appear to be "colored" males, regardless of size. Rarely will all fish in a group be males...and even when they are, subdominant males usually adopt very subdued colors. Most groups will also contain females which are relatively colorless. (There are exceptions to this, such as with Pseudotropheus demasoni and other mbuna species. If in doubt, be sure to inquire carefully before buying.)

2. If all fish in the tank are an unnatural-looking, bright blue-purple, be very suspicious. Blues and purples are the easiest colors to enhance. The colors will almost appear to glow.

3. Be extremely wary when you find a tank of small specimens--under 2 inches or so--all nicely colored. With some exceptions, African cichlids do not obtain nice color until they begin to mature. Immature specimens usually display the colors of the females, and this color is often quite drab.

4. Species most likely to be treated to obtain special, premature coloring include such favorites as Malawi peacocks (genus Aulonocara), the "electric blue ahli" (Sciaenochromis fryeri), species from the genera Copadichromis and Protomelas, among others. Avoid buying young of any of these fish which are brightly colored...unless you are quite confident of the source and certain that they are untreated.


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## Aquariguns (Jan 15, 2015)

I have purchased hormoned fish locally, but only when they are much bigger, like closer to 3 inches. My experience is that if they are strong fish, the hormones will go down within a couple months, but they are big enough to start into their natural coloring up phase. If they are bigger and hormoned, you have like a 90% of having picked males of the group because their artificial coloring is way more instense over the females, and the males are typically larger and fins longer in most cases.

I cant speak to the overall longevity of the fish that have been hormoned, but i have more thans a few specimens that have turned into great adult males. If space wasnt a consideration and i had time to run multiple grow outs, I'd much rather buy a group of juvies and keep the males as they progress.


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## noki (Jun 13, 2003)

Aquariguns said:


> I have purchased hormoned fish locally, but only when they are much bigger, like closer to 3 inches. My experience is that if they are strong fish, the hormones will go down within a couple months, but they are big enough to start into their natural coloring up phase. If they are bigger and hormoned, you have like a 90% of having picked males of the group because their artificial coloring is way more instense over the females, and the males are typically larger and fins longer in most cases.
> 
> I cant speak to the overall longevity of the fish that have been hormoned, but i have more thans a few specimens that have turned into great adult males. If space wasnt a consideration and i had time to run multiple grow outs, I'd much rather buy a group of juvies and keep the males as they progress.


Are you sure they are hormoned? Males can color up a lot early naturally, 2 or 3 inches, depending on the situation, and then lose some color when they change tank. You always get an alpha male getting color.

Most of the time this hormoning is with smaller juvies from East Asia. You see a tank of juveniles and all of the fish have odd glowing male color, usually with some juvenile markings at the same time which is totally unnatural for fish to keep male color and juvenile markings without mood changes.

My argument is that since we have had hormoned Malawi cichlids for more than 15 years, if this was a permanent color cheat the hormone food would be in every store... the fish and food would be marketed together as a gimmick everywhere.


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## Aquariguns (Jan 15, 2015)

I can say for sure the fish i had purchased were hormoned, the entire stock in the store tank was vibrant, and the range in size of fish was 1.5 - 3 inches. The store owner said they were juiced up from his distributor, but he tries to get the largest of the bunch with strong color to try and ensure males. I also have one that was super blue, presented as a red shoulder, turned out to be a female and now is the typical ugly grey female.


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## slater32 (Apr 27, 2015)

Their adult show tank...


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