My new lemon tetras...are grey how do I get them to color up?

**FishGuy67** · 03-27-2013, 02:06 AM

I finally moved my koi out and got 10 lemon tetras shipped in today; they are all about an inch but besides a little yellow and black on their fins they're grey. Now I know they are new and scared and all shoaling really close but I was expecting some color considering my fish tank is mainly black they aren't what I thought I was getting, In time will they brighten up with tetra color flakes? also I read about plants helping the color as well which is my aim to have a heavily planted tank.

**steeler1** · 03-27-2013, 02:12 AM

Yes they will color up after the settle in a little. Plants will help. Their eyes will also get redder and the black outline on their fins will become more pronounced.

They should looks as good as these are better after a few days:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=jsUC5q6P7Mc

Very good choice of tetra by the way!!

**madagascariensis** · 03-27-2013, 02:13 AM

I would not be surprised about their color considering the (very traumatic) ordeal they have just been through. I would give them at least a week if not two before finally judging them on their color. if they still
aren't colored as they are supposed to be by then, I would start looking into other factors such as water parameters, tank decorations and diet.

**FishGuy67** · 03-27-2013, 02:28 AM

I never had fish fresh ordered at my LFS and picked up the same day but considering they all ate some tetra color flakes they aren't too bad off. The fish in steeler1s video are what I expected, you could imagine I'd be a bit sad to see mostly grey fish in my black tank.

PH wise it's perfect for them, there's no ammonia nitrites and almost unreadable nitrates. there's a lot of driftwood and the once crappy LFS plants are growing very fast but they seem to prefer the fast water as opposed to the plants all shoaling under the biggest filter.

I have tetra color flakes and blood worms for them; I use to feed my cichlids krill to enhance their color but the krill are bigger than the tetras lol.

**steeler1** · 03-27-2013, 04:49 AM

I order all my fish online from Oregon (to central CA) and never have any problems with them. Just be patient and like madagasca suggested; after a few days start looking into other potenial problems.

**Lady Hobbs** · 03-27-2013, 01:17 PM

They'll color up but are stressed after their journey. New fish should always go in a darkened tank and left alone for a day without food or messing around with them.

**Taurus** · 03-27-2013, 01:23 PM

Just give'em clean water, good food, and time and they will color up.

**FishGuy67** · 03-27-2013, 06:36 PM

It's been so long since I kept tropical fish, I found a turkey baster and was wondering wtf it was doing with my aquarium stuff. Then remembered I used it to get nasty stuff from the top of my sand tanks lol.

I noticed they colored up a bit already and they seem to like bashing into one another; I haven't tried to determine the sexes but I'd imagine it's the males. My silver dollars would do similar things when they mated but I think this is just aggression hopefully since I have 10 a single fish won't get bullied too bad.

**steeler1** · 03-27-2013, 08:16 PM

The males like you said will stage their "mock battles" but nobdy ever gets hurt, unlike chiclids that realy beat the heck out of each other.

**FishGuy67** · 03-28-2013, 11:41 PM

Everyday they look better; since I added a lot of plants it seems to be helping the color. They were certainly wild caught and all of them survived so I think I'm well off in that regard.

Since I have 2 LFS near me I don't wanna get the plain old fish I wanna get the special order ones I've never seen or kept before.