Through your experience what food works the best for enhancing freshwater fish colours? Esp the Red colors of fish! I want to start experimenting with my festae and see how bright i can get those colors to come out! Any information would be appreciated!

Wow.......I goggle searched your fish......stunning! Well I happen to be quite the "nerd" with ingredients so bear with me. I've researched many brands and found the best combo in the brand called Dainichi. I've used it on the baby Demasoni because the colors seemed kinda faded. Within a weeks time the blues were a nice brilliant color so we bought larger sinking pellets for the other fish. Visit the site it shows some before/after pics of different cichlids. Here's a snip from the website:

COLOR FX represents the most progressive advances in cichlid nutrition
we have ever offered to cichlid hobbyists. Utilizing Dainichi's advanced
encapsulation technology to the fullest, this outstanding formula is
packed with features found in no other food brand in the industry.
For starters, there are an unprecedented seven applications of highly
nutritious as well as potent color intensifiers like shrimp, Antarctic krill,
Cyclop-eeze®, NatuRose® (Haematococcus algae) and spirulina.
As in all Dainichi foods, we included a dose of calcium
montmorillonite clay to simulate the natural ingestion of mineral
particles and to bind and neutralize metabolic toxins. Fully potent
vitamins, digestive enzymes and garlic ensure that the fish are
healthy and free of internal parasites. Furthermore, the scouring
action of the clay enhances the rejuvenation of the digestive
tract which when combined with only two sources of starch (flour as
binder and wheat germ as a source of vitamin E and B) makes COLOR FX
a superb choice of food for even the most delicate of herbivores.

INGREDIENTS GUARANTEED ANALYSIS
White fish meal, wheat germ, wheat flour, shrimp, soybean meal, spirulina, krill meal, Cyclop-eeze®, brewer’s yeast, calcium montmorillonite clay, powdered milk, vitamin mix, mineral mix, garlic, NatuRose® (Haematococcus algae), protease and natural gum.

Min. crude protein 45%
Min. crude fat 7%
Max. crude fiber3%
Max. moisture 9%
Max. ash 9%

Now this is the only food I can say "I've seen results". There is a product called Cyclop-eeze which is one of the ingredients in this one but just reading about it seems to geared more towards saltwater fish and corals and it reads as an additive and not the main food. Hope this is helpful.

in my experience i have not seen much different b/w the dainichi color fx and simple NLS. when i switched from normal flake to NLS i saw a huge difference in the amount of orange my SRT showed.

I have some cyclop-eeze. It is basically a red powder...looks like paprika. Only smaller fish will really take notice of it. I have been thinking about wetting some pellets and rolling them in the cyclops-eeze and placing them in the freezer afterward to kind of bind the powder to the pellet. Paprika is supposed to increase red color as well and can be added to their food.