In this study, the physiological response and growth performances of Acipenser ruthenus were investigated after a long‐term background colour adaptation (12 weeks). Twelve groups of 10 individuals with initial mean body weight of 183 g were reared in black, dark blue, grey and white tanks (three replicates for each colour). At the end of the experiments, growth (initial body weight, final body weight, weight gain per cent, food efficiency ratio, protein efficiency ratio, specific growth rate), blood (cortisol, glucose, pO2, pCO2, pH, haematocrit, osmolality, triglycerides, cholesterol, total lipids) and liver (hepatosomatic index, total lipids, glycogen) parameters were analyzed. Plasma cortisol in the dark‐adapted sterlet (21.95 ± 3.9 ng mL−1) was significantly lower than those in white‐adapted fish (39.44 ± 6.5 ng mL−1), whereas there were no significant differences in cortisol levels between the grey‐adapted fish (23.05 ± 4.1 ng mL−1) and dark blue‐adapted fish (24.2 ± 3.6 ng mL−1). A remarkable increase in mean of body weight (%) was detected in dark‐adapted sterlet (45.2 ± 3.2) being 27.67%, 12.1% and 11.8% higher than the white, grey and dark blue‐adapted fish respectively. The obtained results verified that different background colours lead to different growth performances and physiological responses of starlet, depending on rearing conditions.