Posted by:
MikeST
at Fri Aug 19 09:03:04 2005 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by MikeST ]
I'm pre-apologizing for not having any pictures !
Sorry.
Also for a long post.
Anyway...when I got my little "leucistic" alligator snapper from Jon a few years ago...I remember reading Steves post, that when he fed his pink food like Krill...the turtle got a much redder/pink cast.I tried that and it worked a little
Well after two years..my little guy has lost almost any pink/red cast. Mostly now just a cream/yellow look to it. Top and Bottom. Almost like a beige I guess.
( I've posted before that mine is especially not-aggressive towards food. Very slow growing and also more delicate health wise. I talked to Jon about this last week and he agreed that this is typical. Mine has been doing better now that I separated him and he doesn't compete for food.)
Anyway...Most of my real knowledge is with tropical fish breeding. Not turtles. So a few months ago...I decide to breed some bettas just for fun. Though my daughter would get a kick out of it.They are fairly easy to breed. SUPER small fry...but hardy and they produce TONS of young if you know what you're doing.
Out of two pair...I got over 400 baby bettas.
But when they start to grow over 1/2" ...they start beating the crap out of each other. You either have to put them all in separate bowls..or start culling them out. And with over 400..there's a lot of weaker color ones that are easy to get rid of.
So i started feeding them to my smaller snappers...especially the leucistic.
( By the way...the bettas were perfect food. They're about 1" long now. And they're so arrogant of a fish they almost go right in the turtle mouth. Not skiddish at all.)
Now one of the breeder pairs of betttas were super-red cambodians. Almost a deep red velvet color. Very red and very bright. They produced babies that were a really intense red.
So yesterday I'm cleaning the leucistic tank...and I can't believe it !
After 3 weeks of these guys...he has tons of pink/red cast back. Its amazing.His whole underside and especially the underside of all 4 legs is so different than it was a few weeks ago. I've been really busy at work..so I never noticed. I've just been throwing in a couple dozen of the bettas every few days. Mostly the reds.
Its drastic how his color has changed.
Wish I could produce some kind of large red food fish.
Anyway...thought it was pretty interesting and sorry for no pictures.
Mike
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 An accidental color ecperiment - MikeST, Fri Aug 19 09:03:04 2005
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