en aquaculture aquaculture پژوهشي Orginal research papers We evaluated the effects of natural carotenoid sources on the growth performance and skin pigmentation of <em>Cyprinus carpio</em>. Samples with mean initial weight of 51.23&plusmn;5.04 g were fed with four experimental diets in quadruplicate for 8 weeks: A control diet without carotenoid supplementation and three other diets with three different kinds of natural carotenoid sources, <em>Phafia rhodozyma</em>, <em>Paracoccus </em>sp., and <em>Haematococcus pluviallis</em>, at a level of 45 mg kg^-1 total carotenoids. The growth and feed utilization efficiency did not significantly differ between the dietary treatments (<em>p</em>>0.05). The lightness (L*) in the red zone of the fish on the control diet tend to increase significantly from the other treatments (<em>p</em><0.05). The <em>P. rhodozyma </em>diet provided the highest redness (a*) and chroma (C*), and a strongly reddish hue (H&deg;), with a significant difference to the other diets (<em>p</em><0.05). The yellowness (b*) in the red and the white zones had no significant difference between the dietary treatments (<em>p</em>>0.05). In addition, the fish fed with a <em>P. rhodozyma</em> diet had high accumulated carotenoid levels in the red and the white scales, as well as in the serum. Furthermore, the carotenoid deposition capacity was higher in the fish skin than in the scales and the serum, and the carotenoids were deposited more in the red than in the white tissues. The results indicate that diet supplementation with <em>P. rhodozyma </em>enhances the red skin color of fancy carp. Cyprinus carpio, Carotenoid, Pigment, Growth, Skin color 167 181 http://jifro.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-1809-1&slc_lang=en&sid=1 P. Ninwichian parichartn@yahoo.co.uk 100319475328460032507 100319475328460032507 Yes Faculty of Science and Industrial Technology, Prince of Songkla University, Surat Thani Campus, Surat Thani 84100, Thailand D. Chookird c.duangrat@yahoo.com 100319475328460032508 100319475328460032508 No Faculty of Science and Industrial Technology, Prince of Songkla University, Surat Thani Campus, Surat Thani 84000, Thailand N. Phuwan im.niranzzz28@gmail.com 100319475328460032509 100319475328460032509 No Faculty of Science and Industrial Technology, Prince of Songkla University, Surat Thani Campus, Surat Thani 84000, Thailand