[BoilerFan]

Much to my delight, my LFS has expanded their cichlid section quite a bit over the last few months. This is a pretty nice store with good people. That said, I am fairly certain that their peaocks are hormoned. They simply have fish showing color earlier than they should. For better or for worse I have purchased a couple of these fish recently and am concerned about issues with a) their health and b) their coloration going forward. At this point the fish appear to be perfectly healthy and have taken to my aquarium well.

The first is 2" and has pretty much lost all coloration since being purchased. He now looks like I would expect a 2" fish to look. Can I expect him to color up as normal over time going forward?

The second is 3" and the coloration is probably close to normal though a bit brighter than I might expect given my experience.

I don't intend for this to be a debate on whether hormoning is good or bad, I just want to know what to expect and how to care for these fish properly. Any info or links to articles on the subject would be great.

 

[DJRansome]

I don't think there is anything specific you can do to help them recover or any way to predict their future health. They may have been damaged by the hormones, or they may not.

Most often from what I have read in posts the fish loses it's color and then develops like any non-hormoned fish, seemingly healthy.

I think the hormones are like steroids in people, I believe impact to fish fertility is one concern to watch for.

 

[Chunkanese]

I think I purchased a hormoned sunburst peacock female. It had originally appeared as a male but soon lost all color as a typical female. It's been 2 years now and it's healthy as a horse about 5 inches. Looks like a typical female a bit on the larger side and longer fins.

 

[haywood]

My LFS has been doing this lately as well. Juvie peacocks coming in at 1-2" and showing almost full colors. I got a Eureka and Sunshine. Mine held their color pretty well. After a month, went back to LFS, and all of theirs lost just about ALL of their color. I believe my feeding regimine is what is keeping mine somewhat colored up.

 

[greggb]

In my experience, my peacocks lost their hormone-induced color within about two weeks and never got it back completely. They colored up when they got older, but they were nothing like when I bought them. I wasn't aware that I was buying hormoned fish and was a little disappointed. But in LFSes it's hard to sell fish on the promise that they'll be pretty someday. People want their fish pretty now.

I think if you want to be assured of having good, healthy fish down the road you'll probably want to take them back or give them away and either order fish from a reputable retailer or find a local breeder. Or keep them, and get some non-hormoned fish and plan on getting rid of some fish when they get older. I wouldn't count on the fish you got being all that you hoped they would be. Even if the hormones haven't hurt them, I think it's unlikely they'll develop those kinds of colors.