Clown fish coloration in-store vs at home?

saltyfish24

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I see very light-orange colors of Ocellaris in stores. But on youtube, where people video their home aquariums, their home clown fish are much deeper/darker orange color, which I'm a huge fan of.

Those of you who brought your standard Ocellaris from the store - do you see your clowns darken up in the home environment when fed better food? Or do they kinda stay the same shade of orange?

Here's some I saw in store that looked nice, just very light orange.

1734624378435.png
 

Gumbies R Us

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I see very light-orange colors of Ocellaris in stores. But on youtube, where people video their home aquariums, their home clown fish are much deeper/darker orange color, which I'm a huge fan of.

Those of you who brought your standard Ocellaris from the store - do you see your clowns darken up in the home environment when fed better food? Or do they kinda stay the same shade of orange?

Here's some I saw in store that looked nice, just very light orange.

1734624378435.png
Could be different species, lighting, camera setups etc...
 

EricR

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I'd guess different lighting.
Fish tanks in stores are likely white light.
At home, many are running more blue light in reef tanks.
...but I'm color blind so not the best to chime in on the topic
 

mjszos

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Couple of things come to mind, any or all of these could be incorrect but just my $0.02

1. lighting in the store as others have mentioned
2. editing/post production of photos/videos
3. capturing accurate colors on photo/video is pretty challenging
4. color accuracy of the display you're viewing the media on... Take a picture of an object, then pull that picture up on a few screens. The color difference will exist on every display you look at it, and none of them will look 100% accurate to the physical object unless you use reference quality equipment, etc.
5. fish change colors throughout their lifecycle, your neon orange clowns might turn into a deeper orange as they mature.

Edit: I'll also add that when I bought my Osc. Clowns they were orange with hints of black and white stripes.. 2 years later they're almost entirely black/white with a splash of orange on the face of only 1.
 
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ieatbugman

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You can 100% get clowns that are darker orange, but they are not the normal color variant. It probably is the lighting and camera though
 

Schulks

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Are the younger clowns lighter colored? Perhaps as they get bigger and thicker less light can pass through them. lol
 

Tamberav

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The orange can vary on clowns. They could color up but they very well could not.


Also photos and videos are not very accurate.
 

ISpeakForTheSeas

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I see very light-orange colors of Ocellaris in stores. But on youtube, where people video their home aquariums, their home clown fish are much deeper/darker orange color, which I'm a huge fan of.

Those of you who brought your standard Ocellaris from the store - do you see your clowns darken up in the home environment when fed better food? Or do they kinda stay the same shade of orange?

Here's some I saw in store that looked nice, just very light orange.

1734624378435.png
I'm late, but with regards to the fish color:
some things that can impact a fish's coloration (leaving a few irrelevant factors out of the conversation):
-Light (wavelength, intensity, and duration)
-Health
-Diet (including both vitamins, minerals, etc. and pigments like astaxanthin in a fish's diet)
-Various chemicals and hormones
-Genetics

Some things that affect a fish's coloration are immediate (like stress) while others (like lighting and diet) can take much, much longer to make a noticeable difference.
For an example of the difference pigments in a fish's diet can make:
https://nhrec.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/vdocuments.net_clownfish-astaxanthin-study-reed-mariculture-astaxanthin-level-average-preference.pdf For an example of the difference that lighting can make:
If you want your clownfish to be darker, feeding foods richer in red pigments/astaxathin (the commonly used red pigment in the hobby) is a good place to start - you can even buy astaxanthin powder and add it to whatever you decide to feed your fish.
 

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