black oscellaris pigmentation: does the black mask red/orange or does it replace it entirely?

Like the subject says, wondering if the skin of the black oscellaris contains carotenoid pigments that we cannot see due to the black or if the carotenoids are not present at all.

Thanks,
Kate 

Others will probably know more than me but here's mytheory:

 

Black/Darwin clowns start out dark orange then get increasingly darker, eventually, black. I'm assuming this has to do with increased melanin production. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanin

 

Please correct me if I'm wrong in my thoughts.

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

Well, we know they're 'melanistic'.  We know that if you feed them foods high in carotenoid pigments, the "non-black" areas of their skin will intiially take on orange hues, sometimes quite vibrantly.  But, if not fed foods high in carotenoid pigments, they'll stay more tan.  Since foods high in carotenoids are more expensive, arguably there's no need to feed that to a fish that's ultimately going to be black.  Thus, some Black's have orange noses, some have tan noses, as juveniles.
 
I'm also 100% convinced that light plays a strong role in black coloration development.  Has nothing to do with the actual question, but it does explain why even a mature "female" ocellaris sent to me this summer has all but lost her bright orange snout.  Now, the interesting thing to me is that I've seen my baby blacks LOSE their black coloration when removed from high light environments...what "shows up" is the original "Tan" coloration.  So...if the fish starts tan, turns black, and then goes back to tan, I would "Suspect", that if the fish starts orange, turns black, and were to lose the black, we might see the orange coloration return.
 
And thus, purely speculative, based on my experiences and a lot of guessing, I'd suspect that the carotenoid pigments remain in the skin and are masked by the melanin.  But that is 100% a guess.

Hmmm... mine are pretty much all black by the second month and I have them in rather dim conditions. I have the tanks covered with that corrugated plastic. It cuts out about 50% of the light from the shop lights.

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

interesting...

Interesting. So the orange probably remains in the skin, masked by the black. 
The reason I am wondering is in my killifish club we have a molecular biochemist studying phytoplankton, he is working or was working on a project to ID a strain with a profile that will replace fish oil nutritionally. Requirements go beyond nutrition to ease of culture, ease of packaging so don't necessarily translate to the best culture for clownfish breeders. This club also contains 3 chemists, a retired Cornell professor of fish pathology, and a plankton studying microbiologist, and several guys who go to places like Africa and Colombia to collect new fish. Makes interesting meetings. I got a few of em interested in reef tanks and marine breeding (:
Anyway this guy was talking about why animals store orange pigment, which I had read about in Hoff's book on pages 84-86 and 159-161. In white canaries not only is fertilitiy reduced but the birds need to be supplemented vitamin A. I remembered white or blue gouldians usually die young. He said it was for the same reason, they can't store carotenoid pigments. So then we were talking about clownfish. 
My question was because if the fish stop doing storage of carotenoids then they would probably need a lot more supplementation in their diet to produce fertile nests or even remain in good health. Sounds like they do store it under the black so don't need to worry about that.
On the other hand if breeders are not feeding a lot of color enhancers to young black oscellaris are they going to hurt the fertility of the offspring for the next breeder? Economically this would not hurt if you want to control your local market. But having worked a few retail jobs, I have seen that people pass over brown nosed black oscellaris in favor of red or orange ones, they assume the fish might not get fully black so they want that patch of color to be good if it is going to be there at all.
So in short, you may want to color feed even a black oscellaris.
I coulda just said that. (:
Kate 

Interesting. So the orange probably remains in the skin, masked by the black. 
The reason I am wondering is in my killifish club we have a molecular biochemist studying phytoplankton, he is working or was working on a project to ID a strain with a profile that will replace fish oil nutritionally. Requirements go beyond nutrition to ease of culture, ease of packaging so don't necessarily translate to the best culture for clownfish breeders. This club also contains 3 chemists, a retired Cornell professor of fish pathology, and a plankton studying microbiologist, and several guys who go to places like Africa and Colombia to collect new fish. Makes interesting meetings. I got a few of em interested in reef tanks and marine breeding (:
Anyway this guy was talking about why animals store orange pigment, which I had read about in Hoff's book on pages 84-86 and 159-161. In white canaries not only is fertilitiy reduced but the birds need to be supplemented vitamin A. I remembered white or blue gouldians usually die young. He said it was for the same reason, they can't store carotenoid pigments. So then we were talking about clownfish. 
My question was because if the fish stop doing storage of carotenoids then they would probably need a lot more supplementation in their diet to produce fertile nests or even remain in good health. Sounds like they do store it under the black so don't need to worry about that.
On the other hand if breeders are not feeding a lot of color enhancers to young black oscellaris are they going to hurt the fertility of the offspring for the next breeder? Economically this would not hurt if you want to control your local market. But having worked a few retail jobs, I have seen that people pass over brown nosed black oscellaris in favor of red or orange ones, they assume the fish might not get fully black so they want that patch of color to be good if it is going to be there at all.
So in short, you may want to color feed even a black oscellaris.
I coulda just said that. (:
Kate