Effect of diets on skin colour
The colouration level of flowerhorn fish had not
been investigated as yet. However, it is generally
accepted that the market value of flowerhorn fish
increases with increasing degrees of its skin pigmentation.
Webber, Webber Barlow and Brush
(1973) demonstrated that the pigments in the
cichlid Cichlasoma citrinellum responsible for the
carotenoid colouration were b-carotene and canthaxanthin.
The carotenoids are dietary in origin,
but their distribution and intensity were presumably
under genetic control. Normally, the chromatophores
in fish include melanophores,
xanthophores, erythrophores, leucophores and
iridophores that are responsible for the revelation
of skin pigmentation. However, pigment patterns
in fish predominantly result from the positioning
of different coloured chromatophores. Theoretically,
pigment cell patterning might result from
long-range patterning mechanisms, from local
environmental cues or from interactions between
neighbouring chromatophores (Kelsh 2004). This
study shows that skin lightness (L*) of the fish at