Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Food to make trout flesh pink?

In October I'll get my yearly planting of rainbow trout. I normally feed Aquamax 600 and am very happy. At some point I saw a thread on here about a food that would help to impart a pink color to the flesh. I've searched and searched and haven't found it.

So, anyone know of a food that will turn the flesh pink? Any experience with it? Just wanted to be sure before I place my normal order for the Aquamax 600.

Thanks!!!

I know a guy - Cecil. I'll send him an e-mail and I should get a reply back, but it'll most likely be tonight.

Thanks eshup - I'm pretty sure he was the one who mentioned it.

That would probably have been from me. It shows up in this posting by Bob Lusk WV Pond Boss Gathering With Bob Lusk

My friend who did that is out of town right now, but I'll send him and his boss an e-mail to see if they can tell me what they were feeding the trout to make the flesh look like that of salmon.

Ken

I still like that pic of Sunil!

It's called Astaxanthin.
http://www.coppens.eu/en/products/product/trout-special-growers

Zeigler has a feed with Carotenoid pigments.
http://www.zeiglerfeed.com/product_liter...Performance.pdf

Info from a Cecil post.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=129188&page=2

Thanks AP - that is the Cecil post I was thinking of!
Now I need to see if that is still a product made by Purina.

The 5D19 AX is near the bottom of their chart, but it shows a 2 ton minimum order.
http://www.fishchow.com/aquamaxproductlist.pdf

THanks. I've sent an inquiry to my dealer to see. Unfortunately, I do not need 2 tons!

Yep. You guys beat me to it. Here's Cecil's reply:

The additive is Astaxanthin and you can get a bag of feed from Aquamax with it already added for just a little bit more in price. It's known as Aquamax grower AX 5D19. You have to special order it and it's seasonal. Interesing thing is the pellet size is between a 5D05 and a 5D06.

I doubt that Cecil had to order 4,000# of it, maybe that's their minimum batch weight and once it's made you can possibly order it per the bag?

Thanks esshup. I'll report back on what the dealer says.

Jorge,
If you can't get what your are looking for from your dealer, send me a PM. I probably can get the carotenoid laced feed from Ziglers in a #50 bag. I'm just west of Winchester, VA on US-50, if that wouldn't be too far.
Ken

May I ask a question - why do you need that color instead of original one?

Thanks Ken! That's not too far at all - I'm in Afton near Charlottesville and I drive up 81 frequently.

Have not heard from the dealer yet - I'll report back.

Grundulis - the color is 'just for fun.' I do find it more visually appealing, and I clean/eat a lot of these and serve them at a large party. If you look at the link in catmandoo's earlier post - which one would you rather eat? I'm also a tinkerer - I like to test things out.

My contacts were doing it for research to try and determine if people would pay more for trout that were salmon colored, as opposed to trout filets that are natural color. And yes, when sold side-by-side, the higher priced pink filets would sell better and for more money -- yet they were otherwise identical.

Correct me if I am wrong here but isn't the natural color of trout pink? I was always told growing up if you catch a RBT and the meat is pink it's a natural fish not a transplant? Transplants have white flesh.

Is this wrong?

Can you really change the meat color from what you feed it? That to me seems far fetched?

Yes!

You can also change the flavor to the plus or minus side.

As stated earlier, Carotene is a major influence on color in Salmonids.

You can also train fish!

Well I know you can train fish and I also know you can change flavor from what your fish eat. But color of the meat?? That I did not know??

The most natural one. Why should I eat some additional artificial pigment stuff if it is not necessary? Carrot color doesn't improve the taste of fish and the original color ain't bad anyway.


They are a bit pink but not as much as these what are sold in shops. Their color could be described as pink+grey (a bit).
Like ~10 years ago it was possible to buy Baltic salmon in our markets but now it's almost impossible - nobody wants fish in such wrong color.
About color change:
after feeding trouts with special fish food, they can change their color.
By the way, that affects taste of all these fish. I'm not a professional in all this thing but I have spoken to serious trout keepers. If the fish feeds from natural food (for example small fish) then it will taste better. This option has a disadvantage though - fish grow slower. It's bad for business...



I understand that it's very important when you are seriously in fish business. 99% of people think that if salmon type fish aren't in carrot color then they aren't fresh.
But if I had some trouts for myself, I wouldn't choose to dye them - we eat too much various food additives each day and why should I add more of them?

Found this interesting,

In the wild or on the farm, the color of a trout's flesh depends on its food supply. A naturally occurring pigment called astaxanthin, found in many crustaceans, accumulates in the flesh of salmon and trout that eat them, and this pigment is the source of the orange-red color typical of salmon. Wild rainbow trout in fresh water eat a mixture of insects and small crustaceans, which gives the meat a light pink color. Their seagoing cousins, salmon and steelhead (the latter a rainbow trout that has migrated to the ocean), eat a higher proportion of crustaceans, mainly small shrimp and their smaller relatives called krill, and have resultingly darker orange meat.

The vast majority of farmed rainbow trout get a diet based on grain and fish meal, and they have pale-colored meat that cooks up to an ivory color.

You can see this change in flesh color on Lake Tannecomo in Missouri. Their trout are farm raised and then released into the lake. The lake has grass shrimp in it. The longer the trout survive in the lake without being caught the more pink the flesh becomes. It may just be me, but the more those fish are colored the better they taste.

If they gain their color brighter in natural way, then maybe they can be with better taste too.
But I doubt that such good result can be achieved with pellet feeding. I have heard many negative opinions about that. If these fish have been fed very intensively with pellets, their taste has been compared to the taste of cotton wool Of course, it's only a comparison but it shows that there's nothing good in them

I can't speak for trout, but I find the flavor of my pellet-fed HBG to be quite acceptable. I don't taste any difference between them, and my native BG. However, my HBG are free to forage as the mood strikes them, so even though Aquamax is a huge part of their diet it is not the only thing they have available to eat.

I do hope that the CC I stocked this spring have a milder flavor, (fed on Aquamax also), when compared to my wild, non-fed CC.

I don't say that pellet-fed trouts always taste bad. The worst case is probably then when they are fed very intensively to gain weight as much as possible in a short time.
It's often used in commercial fishing ponds. Owner is interested in growing his fish as fast as possible to allow fishermen catch trophy fish and pay for them. He is not interested in what happens after that - is that fish suitable for eating or not.

I think Grundulis has a point. In Mammoth Lakes, CA, you can fish the lower lakes – easy access, large fat trout (would do a grocery store proud), “fishy” smell and taste even worse or hike 2-3 miles up the mountain- small lean trout (9” is considered large), slight sweet smell, tight and firm light tan flesh, and delicious. The only differences that I know of are that the lower lakes thaw out a couple months earlier and the trout are farmed raised and stocked and the upper lakes still have ice in June (convenient for the hike back) and are not stocked (at least 10 years ago they weren’t). My oldest son and I always chose the hike.

BTW -I have noticed that the local Safeway/Vons sells farm raised, “color added” Atlantic salmon. Does anyone know if this refers to additional dye or to the pellets that they are fed?