Tank color influence on the Tomato Clownfish Amphiprion frenatus metamorphosis

Objective: The color of the environment positively influences the development of some fish species. Thus, we evaluated whether different aquarium colors affected the metamorphosis process of Tomato Clownfish Amphiprion frenatus.Methods: Operationally, we distributed the Tomato Clownfish larvae into white, yellow, blue, or black aquaria and monitored the larval development until 61 days posthatch.Result: We found that environmental color influenced the early development of Tomato Clownfish and their metamorphosis process. In the black aquarium treatment, 87.2% of the larvae in block I completed metamorphosis and reached the juvenile stage, and 59.3% of larvae in block II completed metamorphosis (blocks represented two successive spawns). These high percentiles of metamorphosed larvae were not observed in the other tank color treatments.Conclusion: Thus, our results suggest that the metamorphosis of Tomato Clownfish could be accelerated if the larviculture occurs in darker-color conditions, especially black aquaria. This result has practical and economic implications since Tomato Clownfish specimens are commercialized at the juvenile stage.