Food for Color Enhancment in Fish

Aquarium fish depend on you to provide all of the nutrition that they need to survive and thrive. Some fish have bright reds, oranges and other colors that can fade without certain vitamins and nutrients. However, several categories of fish food can enhance the coloration of your fish.

  1. Seafood

    • Salmon roe gets its red color from carotenoids.

      To enhance the color of your fish, you can feed your fish seafood from the grocery store. For example, the flesh of herring, salmon and crustacean is rich in carotenoids, a pigment that many brightly colored fish can absorb to enhance their red, yellow and orange pigments. These same pigments gives these foods their characteristic colors. To feed them, freeze them and shave the flesh to an appropriate size for your fish. Additionally, lobster and salmon roe -- also available in the seafood section -- contain the same pigments.

    Household Supplements

    • Vegetarian fish readily eat ground marigolds.

      Many other household foods and products contain natural color-enhancing compounds. For example, the spice paprika, beet juice and ground marigolds all contain color-enhancing compounds. You can mix these in with other foods to feed them to your fish. For example, you can soak fish flakes or pellets in beet juice before giving them to your fish. These foods typically contain vitamins and carotenoids and enhance fish coloration.

    Pet Shop Foods

    • Most pet shops sell a wide variety of fish flakes. Some fish flakes are specially formulated to contain color-enhancing pigments. Additionally, some flakes are specially-designed for colorful fish like discus fish and bi-color parrot cichlids. Pet shops also sell frozen fish foods, such as frozen bloodworms, mosquito larvae and crustaceans. These foods contain the same pigments and minerals that enhance fish color and resemble the natural diet of many fish that eat small invertebrates in the wild.

    Additional Supplements

    • You can get color- and nutrition-enhancing supplements from high-end pet shops and Internet storefronts. These foods are designed to have other fish foods -- like pellets, flakes and freeze-dried foods -- soaked in them for several minutes prior to feeding. They often contain carotenoids, vitamin A and HUFA -- short for Highly Unsaturated Fatty Acids. These foods can improve the health of fish and enhance their coloration. Some live foods, like brine shrimp, will actually absorb these as well if you soak them before feeding. This improves the live food's nutritional value.