Products CWT VI Alpha VIE AutoFish Counters Choosing Product List Prices Warranty | | Selecting VIE ColorsProper color selection is a vital part of good experimental design. Your choice depends on how much contrast you need with the background pigmentation, how many different colors you require, and the type of light you will use to fluoresce the tags. Please contact the biology office (email: biology@nmt.us) if you would like assistance. General recommendations- Exhaust all possibilities with fluorescent colors before using non-fluorescent colors. Maximum tag detection is obtained using the VI Light and fluorescing elastomer that contrasts with the background pigment of the animal to be tagged.
- Use non-fluorescent colors only when there is no potential for the tag to become obscured and when all tag detection will occur in bright light.
- Fluorescent colors that blend with the background pigment allow cryptic tagging.
- When using the VI Light, we recommend that the first four colors selected be red, yellow, orange, and blue.
- Test the product under field conditions before beginning large-scale projects.
Colors that may be confused – Ambient Light- Black and brown appear nearly identical.
- Brown and purple look similar. In deep-violet light, purple will appear much lighter while brown does not change. This feature may be used to help distinguish these colors.
Colors that may be confused – VI Light- Green and yellow appear nearly identical.
- Red and pink look similar but can be separated if the VIE Color Standard is used and if the samplers are trained. We recommend that you test these two colors in your animal and with the samplers who will recover the tags.
Colors that may be confused – Blue Light with Amber Filters- Green and yellow appear nearly identical.
- Red and pink appear nearly identical.
- Blue does not fluoresce with blue light.
Fading We are aware of a single project in which red, green, and blue elastomer tags faded after the fish were released into, and resided in shallow, sun-exposed streams. This unusual circumstance has not been reported elsewhere. See also:Download |
