Koi fish are gorgeous fish known for their bright and vibrant colors, but unfortunately, these colors can begin to fade over time, this could be due to natural causes, or there could be a problem that needs fixing as it’s affecting your Koi fish’s health. So, how can you enhance the color of your Koi fish?
Koi fish can be affected by their environment, which could affect their color. To help enhance their color, you must feed them good quality food. You can provide them color enhancing food such as spirulina powder and carotene-rich foods such as carrots and sweet potatoes. You also need to maintain your pond correctly, to name a few ways to improve their color.
Foods that can enhance your Koi fish’s color include:
- Spirulina powder
- Carotene-rich foods such as sweet potato, carrots, winter squash, tomatoes, cantaloupe, broccoli, lettuce, and spinach.
What are the reasons why your Koi fish may be losing its color in the first place? Can the age of the fish cause color loss? How does the color of your pond affect the color of your Koi fish? Let’s find out!
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- 3 proven steps to identify koi fish diseases
- WARNING: 3 things you should NEVER do when it comes to caring for koi
- When to seek professional help when it comes to looking after your koi
How To Enhance Your Koi Fish Colors
Koi fish are stunning fish; they can make you smile with their bright and vibrant colors. However, these fish can lose their color for various reasons. Fortunately, it is possible to enhance your Koi’s colors again when this happens. Let’s go through these methods to bring your Koi fish back to their full glory!
Feed Your Koi Fish Good Quality Food
One of the significant causes of Koi fish losing their color is the quality of food they receive from their keepers. To help enhance the color and vibrancy of your Koi fish, you need to ensure you are feeding them high-quality food.
You need to ensure that the food you are feeding your Koi fish contains a good amount of high-quality fats, good vitamins and minerals, and high-quality proteins to ensure your Koi fish will be healthy and strong. Strong and healthy Koi fish are more vibrant in color than those weak from lack of nutrients.
Feed Your Koi Fish Color Enhancing Foods
If your Koi fish seem a bit dull, you can try and feed them some foods that have color-enhancing properties. You can look for high-quality Koi foods that contain color enhancers like spirulina or carotene, which will help your Koi fish become more vibrant.
Foods that can enhance your Koi fish’s color include:
- Spirulina powder
- Carotene-rich foods such as sweet potato, carrots, winter squash, tomatoes, cantaloupe, broccoli, lettuce, and spinach.
Professionals recommend feeding your Koi fish high-quality color-enhancing food in July and August, as these are the primary growing months for Koi fish. When Koi fish are growing, this is when they develop their colors.
If Koi fish do not receive the help they need to develop their colors, you will need to wait for the next growing season to help them, when their colors can seem dull.
Homemade Koi Fish Food Recipes:
Koi fish Colour Enhancing Paste Recipe
This is the perfect paste for enhancing your koi fish’s color; the carotene in the carrots, sweet potatoes, broccoli, and the spirulina powder will make your Koi’s color vibrant. The sweet potatoes will add vitamin B and C, and the broccoli will add calcium and iron into your Koi’s diet.
To make this paste, put these ingredients into a blender:
- One cooked sweet potato
- 1 cup cooked carrots
- 1/4 cup spirulina powder
- 1/4 cup cooked broccoli
- 1/2 cup of water, or adjust to alter the consistency of the paste
Combine everything in the blender. Once you have a paste, add 1 to 2 packets of gelatin or agar, and blend to thicken.
Scoop the paste into your koi pond for your fish to feed on, or freeze it for later use. Doing so means you can make bulk food and thaw it as required.
Koi fish Colour Enhancing Pellets Recipe
This recipe is also great for enhancing your koi fish’s color, with a dose of spirulina powder and carotene in the form of carrots, spinach, and winter squash. While the wheatgerm provides an easily digestible form of protein rich in vitamin B12.
To prepare them, assemble the following ingredients:
- 1 cup carrots
- 1/4 cup spirulina
- 1 cup wheat germ
- 1/4 cup cooked spinach
- 1/2 cup cooked winter squash or butternut squash
Put all ingredients into a blender. Blend them until the mixture reaches a dough-like consistency. Form the mixture into small patties (the exact size should depend on the size of your Koi).
Lay the patties on a non-stick baking pan and bake them for 10 minutes at approximately 375 degrees Fahrenheit or until hard.
You can refrigerate or freeze the pellets for later use, so this is another suitable option for making bulk batches of koi food.
Maintain Your Koi Fish Pond Well
To help enhance your Koi fish colors, you need to maintain your Koi fish pond well. You need to ensure that the water is fresh and high quality, that the pumps and filters are working and not clogged, and that the pond is big enough for the number of Koi fish you have.
It would help if you ran your pond’s pump for the correct amount of time based on the size of your pump to ensure there is enough oxygen in the water. If you maintain your Koi fish pond well, this will keep the Koi fish’s stress to a minimum, which will improve their color.
Choose Pond Colors That Enhance The Koi Fish Colors
The colors you choose to use inside and around your Koi pond will also affect the colors and vibrancy of your Koi fish. Koi fish try to blend into their environment as much as possible, so if you choose pond colors that create a darker habitat, your Koi fish will deepen their pigment and make their colors darker and more vibrant.
If you choose bright and light pond colors, your Koi fish will lighten their pigment and become pale to try and help them fit into this lighter habitat. So, if you want your Koi fish to increase their colors, you may need to change their pond.
Expose Your Koi Fish To More Sun
If your Koi fish seem pretty dull, this could also be due to a lack of sun exposure, this does not mean you need to take them out of the water and leave them in the sun, but your pond may be experiencing too much shade.
Koi fish tend to have brighter colors when exposed to sunlight throughout the day. So, if you want to enhance the color of your Koi fish, you need to expose the fish to sunlight. You can do this by trimming a few tree branches out of the way, or if you keep your koi fish indoors, you can use an indoor UV light.
Remember to not overexpose your Koi fish to the sun or UV light, as they can be negatively affected by too much sunlight. Only allow koi fish to be exposed to the sunlight for a few hours a day, with the rest of the day being in the shade.
Why Do Koi Fish Lose Their Color?
Unfortunately, when your Koi fish lose their color, sometimes it’s not going to be an easy fix. There are a few reasons why they may become dull; some of these are natural and cannot be changed. Let’s go through why some Koi fish lose their color and what you may be able to do to fix the issue if possible.
The Genetics Of The Koi Fish
One of the main reasons Koi fish begin to lose their color is genetics or bloodline. If your Koi fish is from a weak gene pool, then the chance that it will lose its color increases. Koi fish can take years, and many generations of fish are bred selectively to create a strong bloodline with vibrant colors that will last over time.
The inexpensive Koi fish are usually bred and produced in high quantities, and these are usually the Koi fish you will find at pet stores. The problem with this is that a large amount of breeding creates weak bloodlines, whose color begins to fade over time.
However, these weak bloodlines will always be around as they are easier and cheaper to sell. These fish are not bad Koi fish, but they will lose their color as they age.
So, if you are buying Koi fish for their color specifically, it may be best for you to invest in a few high-end Koi fish, even though they are more expensive, as they will keep their color better in the long run.
Poor Nutrition
Poor nutrition and low-quality food are the main reasons Koi fish start losing their color despite their age, and This is highly noticeable in fish bred in Japan and shipped to the United States and other countries.
When the Koi fish are in Japan, they are fed high-quality food, resulting in koi fish that are bright and full of color. A few months after koi fish get shipped to other countries, their color fades due to decreased food quality.
If you want your Koi fish to be as vibrant in color as they are in Japan, you must ensure you feed them good-quality food. These high-quality foods can be more expensive, but you generally don’t need to feed your fish a lot to keep them healthy, so one bag may last longer than the food you are currently using.
Water Quality And Temperature
Koi fish are sensitive fish that will be affected by the temperature and water quality that you keep them in, this is something that Koi fish keepers need to be warry of, as your pond’s water may be clear, but this doesn’t mean that the water quality is up to par for Koi fish. A gradual change in certain substances in the water will not change the clarity of the water, but they could still affect the Koi fish living in the water. A few of these substances are ammonia, changes in pH levels, and changes in KH. All of these can cause your Koi fish to start losing their color and cause behavior changes in your Koi fish.
Problems with water quality tend to occur in the summer and spring, but they can happen year-round. So, if your Koi fish are losing color or vibrancy, you should test the water to check the levels of these substances.
The water temperature can also affect the vibrancy of your Koi fish colors. Cooler water temperatures can help bring out the color of your Koi fish, while warmer water may make their colors look dull.
Your Koi Fish Could Be Stressed
Unfortunately, stress can cause your Koi fish to lose their vibrancy and color. Koi fish can become stressed relatively quickly, which can be a problem for their owners as you will need to go through the list to figure out the problem to effectively treat it and get your Koi back to their vibrant selves.
Substances in the pond’s water can stress your Koi fish; these include ammonia, chlorine, heavy metals, chloramines, and the water’s pH level. You need to do a water test to find out if these are causing your Koi fish stress.
If the oxygen in your koi pond has decreased, this will stress your Koi fish a lot, and this can happen if your pond pump and filter have malfunctioned, if you don’t clean them regularly, or even if you don’t run them for long enough, depending on the size of your pond.
If your pond is too small for the number of Koi fish you have, this can also stress your Koi fish. These are some of the factors that can stress your Koi fish. If you have fixed these problems and your Koi fish are still stressed, speak to a professional as they will help you find the cause.
Injury, Illness, Or Parasites
If your Koi fish is injured, sick, or has a parasite, your fish will start to lose its color pretty fast. Koi fish that have injuries due to a fight or attack by a predator will lose their color; This is because the Koi fish wants to blend into its environment more and not attract any more attention while it heals.
If your Koi fish is injured, you need to monitor it closely to ensure that an infection does not develop, as this could kill your Koi fish. Once your fish has healed itself, its color should return to normal.
If your Koi fish is sick, which could happen from bad water conditions, or you’re your Koi could have eaten something it wasn’t supposed to, and many other possible causes, then this can cause your Koi to lose its color. You may need to check with a professional to diagnose the fish and determine if it needs treatment.
If your Koi fish has a parasite, this will affect their health immensely as they could start losing weight, among other things, which will cause them to lose their color. You will need to diagnose the parasite and treat it accordingly, or it will kill your Koi fish and possibly spread to the rest of the fish in your pond.
Your Koi Fish Are Young
Koi fish will go through many color stages in their lifetime. When your Koi fish are young, they are incredibly vibrant, and their colors will stand out more. However, as your Koi fish ages, they will become less vibrant and regain their vibrancy depending on certain conditions.
It is crucial to remember that Koi fish will gradually lose their color as they age.
As mentioned earlier, the extent of this color change and loss will depend on the genes of the Koi fish you buy. So, if you want your Koi fish’s color to last long and always look bright and vibrant, then you need to invest in a high-end Koi fish.
Conclusion
Koi fish are beautiful creatures that stand out in the fish world due to their lovely colors. So, it is unfortunate when their colors begin to fade. Luckily, you should fix most of these problems by feeding your fish good quality food and keeping their pond in good condition. Good luck with your Koi fish!
References
https://animals.mom.com/how-to-make-koi-change-colors-12495437.html
https://www.thepondguy.com/learning-center/koi-color-changes/
