Abstract: This study was conducted to assess the effects of various background colors of the culture vessels on growth performance and stress response in juvenile common carp (C. carpio). During the 8 weeks experimental period, juvenile common carp (n = 150) were reared in five tanks with different background colors (white, black, red, blue and yellow). Three replicates of fish were hand-fed near satiety twice a day. Background color did not significantly affect the growth performance of juvenile common carp (p>0.05). Rearing juvenile common carp in black and red tanks led to lower final body weights, specific growth rate and weight gain compared to other tanks (white, yellow and blue). The survival rate ranged from 96.6±3.33 to 100% and was not affected (p>0.05) by tank background colors. The juvenile C. carpio presented higher specific growth rate in the tanks with blue backgrounds (2.89±0.04% day^-1) than in other treatments. The lowest means of protein efficiency ratio (2.03±0.02) and feed efficiency ratio (0.67±0.01) were related to the juveniles held in the red-background tanks. Plasma cortisol concentrations showed significant differences among the fish reared on differently colored backgrounds (p<0.05). The highest means of cortisol concentrations were registered in the juvenile C. carpio held in the tanks with red backgrounds. Rearing C. carpio juveniles in tanks with bright colors can improve optimum culture conditions for juvenile common carp. The elevated cortisol levels in the fish signify that tanks with black and red backgrounds bring about chronic stress in the contained fish and thereby, cannot provide optimum culture conditions for juvenile common carp.