Purple GloBarbs not flourescing
Hey!
So, I have a little shoal of GloFish Tiger Barbs that my kid wanted. They're great, I love tiger barbs and have had the normal ones before. We've got 7 green and 4 red and 4 purple. The greens and reds pop under the moonlight setting on my tank light very nicely but the purples don't at all. They look great under normal light but they don't flouresce. They've been in the tank about a month now. The purple guys were last to be introduced to the tank and they are the smallest and defs the bottom of the pecking order, and I thought maybe they were just taking time to get adjusted but I'm getting a bit concerned that I'm missing something as we pass the month marker.
Tank info:
-45 gallon, fluval 406 filter, NiCrew classic g2 light (has a good night/moonlight mode that gets the greens and reds glowing super bright)
-tank is lightly Planted, they've got a cave and some branches and decor to chase each other and hide in.
- temp 24C, pH 8ish, hardness about 14dgh
-feed them Tropical 'Vitality & Color' flakes, plus a few times per week treats like hikari sinking algae wafers, Seapora freeze dried blood worms, omega one freeze dried brine shrimp.
-tankmates are 4 zebra Danios and a bristlenose pleco.
Anybody else have this issue? Any tips on getting them to glow up a bit? Am I missing something?
Posted Mar 25, 2023, 5:48 PM UTC
I think this is one of my first posts to reddit!
Purple GloFish of all types just don't glow, absolute scam try and return them and get green or yellow ones that glow well. The color of the fish affects how much it glows.
I'm assuming It's because purple absorbs UV light and some blue (which its supposed to re-emit not absorb) so they don't glow, it's a similar situation with the blue ones if I'm not mistaken,
The moral of the story is that the purple and blue ones don't Florence much or at all. Don't buy them
Someone was speculating in another sub that it might be a case where you need to hit them with a proper UV bulb/blacklight to make it work (need higher frequency light to make the flourescence effect, thus regular tank lights don't cut it). Do you know if that's the case? Are the promo shots entirely shooped or is there a lighting trick for it?
I used a blacklight and it did not work. I noticed that my purple GloFish was well, purple. But the ones they show on the promos are more like neon pink which does glow, the cosmic blue promos look much more like super light blue than blue. I think they just used darker pink and SUPER high grade light blue fish for the individuals but I could be wrong
Any black/blue light will work. I just used the night setting on my lights to make my bettas glow. The GloFish ads contain a lot of photoshop, so don't trust those. I think the issue is the purple being so dark and the the issue of it not readmitting the light back. Might be a reason why the purple GloBetta were more pink than purple, idk.