Lemon Peel Angelfish
 

Hello there,

I recently bought a Lemon Peel Angelfish at the LFS. It is in the quarantine tank right now. Unfortunately, it's not very yellow, more on the pale side. I want to know if there are products out there that I can buy to feed it that will bring out it's colours.


Thanks,
mahdlo

Just for future reference you should never purchase a fish that is in anything but top shape as there will be a reason it is not.
The greying (lack of colour) may be the result of a light fungal infection so observe the fish carefully, or, stress in the LFS tank.

You should be feeding garlic extract (garlic extreme0 and selcon both of which add to the health of your fish. Selcon contains vitamins and other stuff which may assist in the colouring of your fish.

He'll probably look better under more ideal lighting. I'm sure your quarantine tank isn't rockin' metal halides or T5s.

Even under a quarantine light lemon peel's should still have that vivid yellow the metallic blue. As said, garlic extract would be your best bet (Even a product like garlic guard should work). Either way, keep him plump and happy and he should get better right away here (might want to keep him in quarantine for a little longer though). Is he going into a mixed reef tank?
Levi

Thanks for the replies. Okay, I guess I over-exaggerated it because of other pictures that I've seen of the fish. The outer line of the fish is pretty yellow, but it's near the middle two sides of the fish that are a bit pale-ish. There seems to be nothing wrong with him, it's like he's the ugly duckling. I'll be sure to soak my food in selcon before I give it to him. Are pellets okay? That, nori, flakes, and the occasional brine shrimp is what I feed to the fish in my main tank. And nope, it's just a FO tank.

Thank you again,
mahdlo

The pale colors just may be a result of him being in a new setting and quarantine. Fish do tend to pale out when under stress. A good natural color enhancer is astaxanthin, this is used by commercial fish farms to give farm raised salmon a nice pink color to their flesh. I've tried to locate it in it's pure form but it is rare and pricy (it's extracted from a marine algae/plankton from what I understand) Fortunately it is also found in good concentrations in krill, so I supplement my fishes diet with frozen krill as a treat.

Cyclopeze and Cyclopeze Micro Crabs work well.

I'm thinking the pale area you've described is the fish's lateral line. How about a photo?

Most fish will benefit from a varied diet, so not eating the same thing every day all the time. I agree with Alberta-newb on the krill comment.

Michika, yes it is the lateral line. I should've thought to use that term! Sorry, but I have no camera and my phone camera just won't cut it. I'll try to borrow one from a friend and hopefully be able to upload for you all to see. But maybe by then, the fish will have its colours out.

Thanks for the suggestion on using krill. I'm going to go ahead and buy some.

I've already bought some selcon to soak my brine shrimp with. I have some leftover frozen silversides that are about 1" in length that I used to feed to my lionfish, but sold that. How can I prepare this so that my trigger can eat it? If I put it in whole, it just gets very, very messy.

So with the krill, I now have... nori, brine shrimp, pellets. What other things can I feed my fish that you guys have found successful?

Thanks!

Mysis, and squid are a couple other good additions.