Does Lighting Affect Your Fish

[o2manyfish]

About 4 months ago I got 3 Captive Bred Goldflake Angels from Bali Aquarich. In the acclimation bucket one was slightly bigger than the other 2 and started kicking butt. So I tossed him into one of the outdoor frag tanks. The other 2 went into the 750g display tank. One that went into the 750 went into the rock work and hid. The other went out and about exploring and proceeded to get his little butt kicked by the flame back trio and the Starkii Damsels.

Other than a slight size difference between the original bossy one. All 3 fish looked identical. They were juvenile angels and all had the same color pattern.

The one who got his butt kicked in the 750 was rescued and tossed into the 2nd frag tank outside. Both frag tanks and the 750g are all one system. Same water, same parameters. The Goldflake in the 750g indoors gets fed 4-6x a day depending how many times the wife thinks the fish look hungry.


The GoldFlakes in the outdoor frag tanks don't get fed. They feed off of what the tank provides. Pods and algae. The frag tanks support about 30 fish this way - including an adult fox face, an adult Heniochus and an Adult Imperator.

All the foods available in the frag tanks are also available to the display tank. So the only difference is the fish outside are growing up in the sunlight.

Here is a video of the difference in the fish after 3.5 months living in 2 different lighting conditiions






Dave B

 

[blaxsun]

Was it the lighting or the hungrier/faster fish? :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Yeah, different lighting spectrum and intensity can have some pretty major impacts on fish (and inverts), but the effects don't seem very well studied at this point, unfortunately (see below for most of the related info I've found so far). This the first I've seen about it impacting color and health generally though - super cool!

No problem - I don't know if the light type/spectrum/intensity would make a difference in this case or not, but I found these articles which made me interested:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1011134413001723(Impact of different LED conditions on broodstock ovarian maturation.)
https://indianjournalsonline.com/index.php/JEOH/article/view/1649(Effects of different artificial light intensities on the growth and survival of [viviparous] mosquitofish from the embryonic stage on.)

I haven't gone looking too far down this rabbit hole yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to find if these variables had a major impact on most (if not all) fish and larvae.

Good luck with this batch - hope the infusoria works!