Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi this is an important one... I'm having a dinner party tomorrow night. Started my trout on the 7mm food early this week. Does anyone know how soon the flesh colour will change in the trout after feeding them 7mm skretting?

It aint gonna happen overnight. I would say at least 6 weeks!!

Is that a guess?

Gavin has been breeding and growing out trout for eternity, Id take his word over any member here.

No probs I was just asking. Thanks Gavin.

Thanks for bringing this topic up Colours, good question.
Our trout have been fed skretting ff 7mm pellets for a year now and have seen no change in flesh colour whatsoever.
Could the pellets have gone stale or the additive break down?
Haven't seen much orange flesh in the trout thread either.

Hmmm that last sentence sounds somewhat wrong...

Skretting actually told me it would take up to 8 weeks but I found that my fish had nice coloured up flesh after just 6 weeks. They will get some colouration in less time I am sure but not the real bright orange.
Skeg, my guess is that you have Nova 7mm and if thats the case your fishes flesh will stay white. It has to be the Skretting Spectra 6 or 7mm to get the orange flesh. Check to see what Cheidys are buying, they may be buying the Nova as its a little bit cheaper.

Only Spectra 7mm at Cheidys! I can guarantee it

All feed has been bought from BYAP/Cheildys and recently a 20kg bag which was labeled Skrettings Spectra 7mm.
We have 5 big healthy rt's here that have never complained about the texture or taste so no problem there either.
And I've read that it doesn't taste different either and that it's purely for presentation.
However, my question remains unanswered.

Over the last couple of years product from skrettings Australia seems to be quite variable....
Last years bag of "7mm" Spectra FF...clearly labelled with a sticker wouldn't have measured 5mm and in comparison to 5mm pellets on hand , visually were smaller, but the trout coloured up fine. This years 7mm seems to have "foreign" articles embedded (feather meal??) and seems to be a slow sinking.Not that that matters with trout but its not what its labelled as...
As far as taste goes I reckon the flesh is firmer and a bit drier in a positive way with a sweeter end to it with the betacaratone.

Just curious, if you feed the trout feed to something like perch, will the flesh of the perch change colour also? Or is it a plain genetic thing?

No, the flesh colour of the Perch will stay white even if feed the Spectra feed.

I personally dont use the Spectra 7mm so cant comment on it but by the sounds of it they may have had some issues with it if the size of the pellets is varying. I use the 6mm Spectra and have not noticed any size or quality differences in it over the years. The 6mm being a sinking pellet works out cheaper per kg than the floating pellets and in my situation no pellets ever make it to the bottom of the tank without being consumed.

I'm curious about how it works. When you feed infants pumpkin for a few days they turn orange from the betacarotine.

Whats wrong with the natural colour of the trout flesh? Mine are beautiful light colour and certainly no one puts their nose up if the flesh is not pink. They are grown in our aquaponics systems and the more natural the better I say, Im not about to 'enhance' my fish flesh colour, sounds crazy.

The way you breed red factor canaries is from selective breeding over years of hard work and a good eye, not from an additive in the food like alot of people do to make them look good for a few weeks, doesnt sound natural to me.

+1 for my awesome natural looking trout flesh

Some trout have flesh that is naturally orange because of what they eat as part of their normal diet. A higher value has been placed on trout that have this color for whatever the reason. The additives may or may not be synthetic and fish aren't the only animals to get these. I'm not sure what Skrettings uses but Astaxanthin is what I think they probably use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astaxanthin