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The science behind Channa Marulioides colors and pattern



Channa Marulioides is the chameleon of the fish, they are the champion when comes to color changing abilities. In a split second they can change from greenish brown to yellow and to orange. They can change their eye color from black to bright red.

Observe your Channa Marulioides and you can see they greet you with bright yellow colors doing the maru dance, they flashes their bands to the highest contrast. The body colors are intense and their eyes bright vampire red in colors. When they are tone down and just swim about their business you notice the color is dull when they are in mid water, and suddenly sinking to the bottom with bright orange (depending on the var and PH) they keep changing and flashing their bands and patterns. But the black and white flowers will remain so in whichever mood they display. Also take note that maru shows their best colors mostly at midnight.

Each Channa Marulioides comes in its own unique pattern of bands and flowers, like a fingerprint, I believe every piece is unique on its own. They have the most complex chromatophores arrangement.

So what does all this means and how do they do it?
Chromatophores are found in the scale and skin of the fish. They are responsible for the fish colors and patterns and also flowers in the marulioides. They consist of multiple color pigments mainly:
Xanthophores (yellow)
Erythrophores (red/orange)
Leucophores (white)
Melanophores (black/brown)
Cyanophores (blue).

Iridophores (reflective/iridescent) are mainly guanine crystal and they orchestrate the pattern of bars and which I also believe are responsible for the flowers. Are they genetically coded to formed all these or can they be manipulated?

For the orange var I believe its due to the presents of Erythrophores pigment or maybe its from the arrangement of the pigment cell. Nobody has done an in-depth studies on the marulioides chromatophores so I guess we will never know this until the day comes. But one thing we are certain is that Xanthophores and Erythophores can be manipulated with added carotenoid diets. Mainly prawns and Astaxanthin added product.

Changing of colors is just the cell shifting about the multiples pigment arrangement that gives them the colors. For the bars and patterns is the structure of Iridophores guanine crystal arrangement usually together with pigment cell of Melanophores.

Another interesting aspect is that PH plays a role in the colors and formation of flowers, perhaps maybe it is in their genetic that maru thrive in low PH environment that makes them most comfortable and they respond with their best in colors. Often wild caught peat swamp fish will show their best colors and that is the orange that we want.

The part we are most interested in is the formation of flowers. The flowers of the marulioides scale are mainly Leucophores (White) and Melanophores (Black). They will be permanently formed like a tattoo, they can't make it lighter or darker. Unlike the bars on its bodies that can turned darker or completely disappear. Is this so or is there some other thing that define this aspect. Why are chromatophores pigment in the flowers scale permanent? Why is the color changing ability absent and what caused this mutation?

This is what we will continue to investigate and the best we can do is through non-scientific methods of trial and error.

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