Guppy coloration and substrate

[Jimmy]

I got a order in from Lucas today that included some plants, red scarlet endler pair with fry and 10 fire red neos. Unfortunately I smushed 1 shrimp bahhh.

In predation I moved a group of guppy’s from the tank I put that order in. The tank has aragonite sand. The tank I moved them too is bare bottom with the glass painted black. Immediately after moving my existing guppy’s they looked way better and had much darker coloration. 

is this typical? Anyone keep fish exclusively on darker substrate? If I want to cover the thin layer of aragonite with a darker substrate is that problematic? I don’t want to disturb my new shrimp.

The red Scarlet endler pair included 1 male, 2 adult females and I believe one fry. Very generous. After they settled I Noticed 5+ new guppy fry and I’m quite certain they didn’t come from my LRB order. I don’t want to muck up my new endlers genetics so I will be fishing them out when I get time.

[Chad]

I believe this is typical. My guppies would darken up after being put into my main tank. At first it worried me, I thought they were stressing or something bad. But I was watching a vid from Prime Time Aquatics recently and they mentioned liking darker substrates to get their fish to color more and I was like “oh come on! Was it simply the color of my tank that did that?” Turns out, yeah, it was.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Love Lucas’ stuff. Have a bunch of his shrimp and Endlers 2 x each. I think for me his tanks prove that if you miss maintenance and don’t over feed they’ll be ok. 

[lefty o]

environment can definately cause a fishes color to change slightly.