# Is lack of Red on my RBPs due to what I am feeding them?? Your thought



## CJ's Fish (Apr 2, 2006)

I have a 90 gallon with 4, 8-10” RBPs and a 12” Oscar. I feed the p’s a tilapia filet every couple days and that is pretty much it. They are good health fish that breed biweekly but they just don’t have much red and this seems to be passing on to the 2nd generation. I was wondering if this is a nutrition problem or is that just how they are??? Any suggestions would be great!


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## TobiasRieper (Mar 14, 2008)

CJ said:


> I have a 90 gallon with 4, 8-10" RBPs and a 12" Oscar. I feed the p's a tilapia filet every couple days and that is pretty much it. They are good health fish that breed biweekly but they just don't have much red and this seems to be passing on to the 2nd generation. I was wondering if this is a nutrition problem or is that just how they are??? Any suggestions would be great!


Try feeding them frozen blood worms or shrimp with the shell. They have this stuff in them (not sure what it is called but youll get that answer soon from another member) that promotes color in your p's.


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## Corner (Feb 27, 2007)

Them not showing red can be a sign of stress, and having that oscar in there could definitely be the stress factor. Does the oscar chase them at all?


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## Piranha_man (Jan 29, 2005)

Keeping them with the oscar is a problem all it's own.
It's not going to work out in the long run.

As for the color, tilapia, while a good food for your fish, does nothing to enhance color.
The best thing you can do to bring out the color of your fish (besides keeping water quality pristine) is to feed them Hikari Cichlid Gold pellets.
For fish your size, I'd go with the "Medium size" pellets.

And get that oscar out of there!


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## Corner (Feb 27, 2007)

Piranha_man said:


> For fish your size, I'd go with the "Medium size" pellets.


For 8-10" fish you say medium sized? Really? How big of fish would you start feeding large pellets to?


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## Piranha Dan (Nov 11, 2007)

It could be diet, or it could be stress from having the Oscar in the tank with them. It could also be that they're just not that red. Coloration varies widely with RBP's. Out of my shoal of 6, only two of them have decent color, one's got a little bit of red, and the other 3 have no red at all except on their lower fins.
I feed mine every other day, alternating between Hikari Carnivorous Fish Pellets, Freeze Dried Krill, and raw tilapia/shrimp chunks.


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## Retaks (Apr 6, 2008)

Piranha Dan said:


> It could be diet, or it could be stress from having the Oscar in the tank with them. It could also be that they're just not that red. Coloration varies widely with RBP's. Out of my shoal of 6, only two of them have decent color, one's got a little bit of red, and the other 3 have no red at all except on their lower fins.
> I feed mine every other day, alternating between Hikari Carnivorous Fish Pellets, Freeze Dried Krill, and raw tilapia/shrimp chunks.


I have 3 Red Bellys. The one ive had the longest is very bright orange. The next smaller one(Well i think its slightly bigger now) has the Red Like most Red Bellys you see and the smallest has just a very faint yellow tint to it. I had mine with and Oscar for a whyle and the Oscar was more stressed about the Piranhas then the Piranhas were about the Oscar and the Oscar was about 2.5" bigger then the Piranhas.


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## Piranha_man (Jan 29, 2005)

Corner said:


> For fish your size, I'd go with the "Medium size" pellets.


For 8-10" fish you say medium sized? Really? How big of fish would you start feeding large pellets to?
[/quote]

I'd feed fish that were 12" and up large size pellets.


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## JoeDizzleMPLS (Nov 5, 2007)

Piranha_man said:


> For fish your size, I'd go with the "Medium size" pellets.


For 8-10" fish you say medium sized? Really? How big of fish would you start feeding large pellets to?
[/quote]

I'd feed fish that were 12" and up large size pellets.

[/quote]
agreed, and i still feed fish in the 6-7" range the small sized pellets, they just seem to handle them better


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## Coldfire (Aug 20, 2003)

A couple of things could be going on there.....

1. Having an Oscar in the tank could be stressing your fish. As you know, when a pygo is stressed it tends to lose color.

2. Try mixing the diet.

3. Look to add food items high in Alph & Beta Caritens (e.g. Pellets, raw shrimp with the shells on, krill, etc...)

4. Have you tested your water parameters? Poor water quality can also cause a loss of color.


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## NegativeSpin (Aug 1, 2007)

The color enhancer you are looking for is astaxanthine and it is abundant in shrimp (with shell) and krill. Some high quality pellets include it as an ingredient. Check out www.kensfish.com for foods that are high quality and good for the price. It might not be in your fishes genes to express their colors at that size. When you get to 12 inches many reds don't show red anymore. You mentioned your reds offspring, if I heard right, don't have color either. It sounds like the breeders are going for quantity over quality in reds. If they wanted, for the amount of time they have been breeding them, they could have gone for size and color.


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## Piranha Dan (Nov 11, 2007)

Retaks said:


> I have 3 Red Bellys. The one ive had the longest is very bright orange. The next smaller one(Well i think its slightly bigger now) has the Red Like most Red Bellys you see and the smallest has just a very faint yellow tint to it. I had mine with and Oscar for a whyle and the Oscar was more stressed about the Piranhas then the Piranhas were about the Oscar and the Oscar was about 2.5" bigger then the Piranhas.


If you've got a batch of really aggressive Reds it could go that way. Plus, it's a 3 vs. 1 scenario so I can definitely see the Oscar constantly being the one running scared. It's still not a good situation though, imho, you really ought to think about moving the Oscar out of there. Just because they don't have teeth doesn't mean they can't kill your P's if they get into a fight. I got bit by an 8" Oscar once, felt like someone pinched the skin of my forearm between a pair of pliers and twisted.


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## Retaks (Apr 6, 2008)

Piranha Dan said:


> I have 3 Red Bellys. The one ive had the longest is very bright orange. The next smaller one(Well i think its slightly bigger now) has the Red Like most Red Bellys you see and the smallest has just a very faint yellow tint to it. I had mine with and Oscar for a whyle and the Oscar was more stressed about the Piranhas then the Piranhas were about the Oscar and the Oscar was about 2.5" bigger then the Piranhas.


If you've got a batch of really aggressive Reds it could go that way. Plus, it's a 3 vs. 1 scenario so I can definitely see the Oscar constantly being the one running scared. It's still not a good situation though, imho, you really ought to think about moving the Oscar out of there. Just because they don't have teeth doesn't mean they can't kill your P's if they get into a fight. I got bit by an 8" Oscar once, felt like someone pinched the skin of my forearm between a pair of pliers and twisted.
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The OScar has been out of there for a couple weeks now. He was just in there as a temp home since his tank had a leak and i had to get a new one.


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## Piranha Dan (Nov 11, 2007)

Good to know. It'd suck to lose any of those fish. Oscars are cool, especially once they grow out to 8-10" or so.


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