Most of the color enhancing foods are trash. Would recommend hikari blood red parrot but ive heard of h.l.l.e coming from that and its pretty expensive. I have a bag and feed it very sparingly to be safe. Grand sumo red is ok but not better than omega one super color and its also expensive. Nls makes a red enhancing formula but ive never used it.
I stick with omega one super color, hikari cichlid bio gold plus, nls thera plus, and freeze dried krill.
Avoid foods made by okiko and a-life etc. They are garbage and thats personal experience. There is no "ancient chinese secret" to fh foods. Our domestic pellets are superior to anything coming out of western asia and they cost less.
A longer photo period and natural sunlight (brighter tank light) will do more for color than food ever will.
IMO, you're probably not going to do much better than the noted Omega One pellets. Compare the ingredients to those of any of the current popular super foods and you'll find they are very close.
I'm aware that Tetra foods are considered by some to be junior varsity products, but you might mix in some of their small grain cichlid pellets. I used to occassionally feed the Tetra color enhancing pellets to my Central American cichlids for variety.
Long story short. There all bullshit. I would avoid all of them. Too much protein and possible hormones and other ingredients are hard on Flowerhorn's sensitive digestive system. Stick with omega one, NLS, and Hikari.
Sounds like I'm on the right track then. I'll pick up some freeze dried krill this weekend. One of the reasons I went with the Omega One is cuaee the ingredients looked better on the label. I'll look up the others mentioned and check them out. I know a good diet is best so just making sure that's what I'm feeding.
What about fresh foods like I used to give my plecos cucumbers.
Frozen Bloodworms are good for all colors on fish including red. For red coloration I like Hikari Blood Red Parrot food. I have noticed better red coloration in 10 days. I do agree with everyone above who talked about Okiko foods and Ionic Red being garbage foods. They cause so many stomach problems.
All higher quality foods currently on the market are "color enhancing" foods. They all contain numerous raw ingredients that ensure that a fishes genetics will shine through to their full potential. I have used a number of the more specialty foods designed to enhance the color red, and would place NLS Ultra Red and Hikari Blood Red Parrot plus at the top of the heap. I have no idea who suggested that feeding Hikari BRP would cause HLLE, but it would have been someone talking out of their ass. Seems to be a common occurrence on the internet.
BTW - after genetics, diet is key to getting the full natural coloration out of a fish. Feed a low cost generic farm feed for 30+ days and you'll see what I mean. I once bought an adult yellow midas (because it was yellow), that as I suspected was an orange and white "creamsicle", that I later found out was being fed a low cost commercial farm feed. I posted pics of that fish on MFK years ago, the transformation after a few weeks on NLS was shocking. I'll check and see if I can find that thread, or pics on my hard drive.
Found it,not the original thread, but another posted several years later where I posted pics of the fish, in the same tank, under the same lights, a few weeks after a change in diet.
I picked up some freeze dried krill and blood worms today. I'll look into the Hikari BRP or NLS Ultra Red and order them next time I'm ordering food.
As far as genetics not really sure got the KKP from a local store and the FH came from petco. Got it for $4 I'm quite happy with how he looks for that price. I'm just trying to make sure I feed the best I can.
