Colored tetras...

[Heather]

Just wondering how do they color the pastel tetras that you see at all of
the pet stores. I own a few of them and they are very pretty even if they
are artificial, plus I haven't killed any yet, so they must be pretty tough.
-Heather

[Kristen]

"Heather" <sand...@hotmail.com> wrote:

They use needles to inject them with a dye that fades in a few weeks
or months. They're notorious for dying before then. They're also
brackish fish - Chanda ranga, as I recall.

See ya,

Kristen
--

"The Frogurt is also cursed."

[Jeremy]

Don't mistake "painted glass fish" and "painted tetras". The glass fish die
very quickly and are prone to ick while the tetras seem to be a bit hardier.
They are injection colored fish though and this almost HAS to have a
negative effect on the fish.
Jeremy
Kristen <dran...@cannan.net> wrote in message
news:37fce81f...@news.ne.mediaone.net...

[Shawn Turner]

Heather wrote

>Just wondering how do they color the pastel tetras that you see at all of
>the pet stores. I own a few of them and they are very pretty even if they
>are artificial, plus I haven't killed any yet, so they must be pretty tough.

Tetras come in just about every color.

Chanda ranga, ghost fish, glass fish, only comes in
transparent. Gets injected with food coloring to turn it
into the painted glass fish.

Those cardinal tetras, the bleeding heart tetras, what you
see of them in the store is the pale coloring of a frightened
fish. Get 'em home, good water, nice environment, plants
to hide/run through, they'll get their _real_ colors.

Shawn T
If I didn't answer and should have I probly didn't see it
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[Beverly Erlebacher]

In article <7sokmr$hsl$2...@nntp2.atl.mindspring.net>,

Heather <sand...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Just wondering how do they color the pastel tetras that you see at all of
>the pet stores. I own a few of them and they are very pretty even if they
>are artificial, plus I haven't killed any yet, so they must be pretty tough.

These are albino black tetras (Gymnocorymbus ternetzi) and they give them
those pastel 'fruit' colors by feeding them dyes or maintaining them in
water containing dyes. They color other albino fish the same way.

THe glass fish with the fluorescent stripes are colored by injection
of dye with a needle.

[Jeff McKee]

The colored tetras (white form of the black tetra,not a true
albino) are injected with the colored dyes. The painted glass
fish are actually that - painted. Look closely at a painted
glassfish and you can see that the color is actually painted on
the fish.

[Heather]

I meant the actual tetras, not the painted glassfish. I have 6 of them and
they seem to be doing great, menaing I haven't killed any yet. They also
seem to have a good survival rate at the store where I work. Yesterday
someone had turned the heater up and the water temp was too high to be
registered on the thermometer, so I had to do a serious water change. I hate
when customers tamper with the fish. One week someone had dumped a bunch of
diatom powder in an angelfish tank, luckily it didn't seem to hurt them,
just made the water really gross.
-heather

[Kristen]

"Heather" <sand...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>I meant the actual tetras, not the painted glassfish.

Oh, you mean the Blueberry and Strawberry Tetras? They're
artificially colored, too.

[FrankKay]

Heather,I feel for ya,haven to put up with some of the peoples little
tricks.In my younger years,I opened a LPS. 21 years old @ the time,I cought
a 35 year old man sticking his gum down deep,in one of the puppies ears.I
beat the hell out of him,& spent a week in jail for doing so.Also had to pay
court cost & fine of $25.00.Asked the judge if I gave him $50.00,could I do
it again??? FRANK
Heather <sand...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
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