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Hormones?

zackcrack00

Members
What are your experiences with fish on hormones? Any way you can tell? I ask because a nice batch of OB peacocks just came in to the store where I work. I want to get a little group of them but I want to be sure that the color will stay. Good food, clean water, etc are all great ways to keep color I know. But, what are the chances they are on hormones?


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festaedan

potamotrygon fan
I know allot of suppliers will sell fish with hormones and you can never be 100% sure what they did to those fish. Its the same with vegetables and produce, you can never be sure.
pics?
 

JLW

CCA Members
The easiest way to tell is that if a batch is ALL coloured up and most of the fish are less than half adult size, they're hormoned.
 

Tangcollector

Active Member
Staff member
So here is a question. I have read some articles that say that inbreeding and post hormone coloration is possibly due to improper water conditions and diet, especially diet. So if you get a hormone induced fish, After the hormone treatment wears off, is this fish destined to stay drab or will growth, water, and diet return that fish to it's glory when it matures to the coloration for the natural size and age of that species. I know that pecking order and breeding have a turn in it all but all other things being equal can you return a hormone induced fish back to it's glory or do the hormones stunt anything?
 

JLW

CCA Members
Hey Greg,

The use of hormones has some serious, long lasting effects on the fish. The most telling of these is that female fish will generally display male characteristics, and the heavy hormone use damages or stunts their sexual organ development. They wind up looking like your aunt with the mustache forever. :) Such fish are usually not capable of breeding, though they may have limited success depending on how much damage has been done.

In male fish, because they have been "juiced" at an early age, and effectively forced to develop their sexual organs and characteristics, they'll often have reproductive issues as well. Think about what happens to a baseball player when he uses steroids -- the same happens to the fish. Because of the age of the fish, they may or may not be able to recover it from it -- these organs were "in development" when they were rushed.

With that being said, if you separated a really nice male out of a group of juiced peacocks, and grew him up in isolation (or with a handful of females), with good water quality and good food ... he'd probably wind up looking okay, he just may not breed. Of course, you may also separate out the biggest, nicest male from the group and find out, four or five months later, that you have the biggest, nicest female (with a mustache).
 
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