Set up

[Eternal]

What color gravel, background and lighting will give my frontosas more color?

 

[TankBoss]

What color gravel, background and lighting will give my frontosas more color?

In my opinion, white sand with black background is where it is for making colors stand out. My point and shoot camera doesn't deal well with my new lighting but I am super stoked on it.

 

[Eternal]

Are you using moonlight? Or what lighting do you have?

 

[TankBoss]

Are you using moonlight? Or what lighting do you have?

It's a two bulb fixture with one actinic bulb and one white. It's not as dark as it looks in the pic... I had to play with the settings on the cam because the camera seems to get confused by the lighting. I was having second thoughts about the lighting but it turned out that my problem was dirty tank walls. Cleaned them and now I really like the lighting.

 

[HUKIT]

I use black Tabitian Moon sand with deep blue backgrounds in all my tanks but one. Lighting is T5HO by Coralife running 10k and actinic with a couple of Colormax bulbs with this combo every spectrum is present. Black sand really brings out the fish but you better have good lighting cause black really soaks it up. Running lighter sand like pool filter doesnt need as strong lighting because the light is reflected. But my vote is black.

 

[Eternal]

Tank boss-so you use two different color lights?

 

[Eternal]

Hukit- I've heard black really brings out the color on fish but my concerns are that the black will look too opaque

 

[Tim Wheatley]

The issue with black sand is that you don't get any light bouncing back. The underside of the fish is usually very dark due to that. Light substrate and dark back-of-tank is the best IMHO.

 

[mfdrookie516]

I've heard numerous times that dark substrates tend to prevent Africans from coloring up to their full potential. I use PFS in my 150g, which has kind of a light tan, almost creme color to it.

 

[Eternal]

Really? I tried black gravel once but like I said before it looked too opaque so I decided to change it

 

[Tim Wheatley]

I've heard numerous times that dark substrates tend to prevent Africans from coloring up to their full potential.

That's interesting. I wonder if it's the fish not coloring up, or the lighting which is bouncing back isn't there so it just looks like it? To see what I mean, just hold a piece of paper flat under someone's chin and watch the light bounce, you'll see the shadowing under their nose and chin reduce.

 

[HUKIT]

I have found that black really makes the colors of the africans pop. I have a 20g long quarentine tank with white PFS and when I put the fish into that tank I really notice the color of the fish lighten up almost trying to blend into the surroundings, then when back into the display tank the colors are amazing.