Quote Originally Posted by Lunker
When I get little rainbows from the hatchery they are almost completely black. The man from the hatchery told me that it was because they were in a closed tank with no light was why they were black.
I can vouch that this holds true for Atlantic Salmon. We catch brood stock in the fall that are placed in green-bottomed holding tanks. By the time they are released, they are nearly perfectly green! They tend to blend into their surroundings. We actually had a blind salmon one year (we didn't realize it until after we had it back to the hatchery) and it was nearly all black, beacuse it had no visual cues as to what colour it should be. Just one more reason to marvel at these fish and their adaptive abilities, IMHO.