peppering

[tha_krust]

its my understanding that discus only pepper if they have PB bloodlines, is this true and what strain should i avoid to avoid peppering?

[Hollowman]

Yes, true. But there are many great fish coming out of Asia that have had the pepper bred out.
Any blue based fish will not have pepper.

NEVER cross blue with PB or you will see a lot of pepper.

H

[tha_krust]

i have some pigeon pearls, during the day they are dirty looking but with more orange and blu and at night they are really pearl..does peppering dissapear with age... and do you know the breeders who are selling pepper free discus..any in thailand?

[Hollowman]

Environment (water conditions), stress, background colour, substrate can all make a difference to peppering. Age can make a difference too, but generally, if there is peppering showing, it will never go, but can be lessened by changing the conditions you keep your fish under.

As for Thailand, I do not know, you can do some research and find farms on the internet no problem.

hth

H

[tha_krust]

i have suppier in thailand but they do not advertise "non-peppered" if anyone knows of one in thailand that claims to have no peppered discus let me know. there seems to be alot of PB strains coming out of thailand (and is my understanding that is where marlboro red was developed)..compared to lets say Malaysia that seem to have alot more non pb strains.

i would like to understand how the bloodlines are connected. if anyone has some info on it. for instance what is the difference between a white butterflys bloodline\ancestry compared to a pigeon pearls bloodline\ancestry where do some of the strains come from?

[Hollowman]

Photos of each are necessary here, so many people call fish by the next 'new name' for selling, who really nkows what you have.
:?

[tha_krust]

i would like to understand how the bloodlines are connected. if anyone has some info on it. for instance what is the difference between a white butterflys bloodline\ancestry compared to a pigeon pearls bloodline\ancestry where do some of the strains come from?

[ILLUSN]

the strains are caused by genetic mutations usually by repeat cross over during meiosis, its pure chance what crossover you get and which color genes are recombined, inbreeding opens fish up to more "genetic mishaps" these can result in both desirable color mutations (eg inbreeding my silver angels has lead to 20% albino rates) and undesirable traits (poor growth, body malformations such as "bulldog" discus, reduced disease resistance, infertility) the process of "line breeding" is a watered down way of inbreeding(cross int to a grandparent or parent as opposed to a sibling).

the pigion blood strain was origionaly derived from a turquoise which in turn was derived from wild blues/ royal blues and even heckles. tracing the ancestestry of any particular butterfly strain is nealr imposible but its most basic form would have been a pearl scale pigion blood fish which were developed in the 90's

[tha_krust]

the strains are caused by genetic mutations usually by repeat cross over during meiosis, its pure chance what crossover you get and which color genes are recombined, inbreeding opens fish up to more "genetic mishaps" these can result in both desirable color mutations (eg inbreeding my silver angels has lead to 20% albino rates) and undesirable traits (poor growth, body malformations such as "bulldog" discus, reduced disease resistance, infertility) the process of "line breeding" is a watered down way of inbreeding(cross int to a grandparent or parent as opposed to a sibling).

the pigion blood strain was origionaly derived from a turquoise which in turn was derived from wild blues/ royal blues and even heckles. tracing the ancestestry of any particular butterfly strain is nealr imposible but its most basic form would have been a pearl scale pigion blood fish which were developed in the 90'syes thats what i'm talking about, anybody know where i can get more info on it???

[ILLUSN]

What this means is all pigions are essentially derived from the same fish so you cant trace the ancestry.

As for your specific question white butterflys ARE pigion pearls. just cleaner.

stop trying to buy, sell or keep discus by a starin name that someone invented, you'll just make yourself crazy.

[tha_krust]

so then, now my question is this, if i want to CREATE my own strains , is there some kind of pattern or is it completely random (not that i'm going to) ...(purely hypothetical)..ie: lets say you have 2 pair of fish (from different parents) , 1x male PB and 1xBD, and lets say pair 1 gives you blue SS wiould that mean that pair 2 would give you the same or is it completly random?? ..if that at all made sense??

[Hollowman]

imo you should never mix a blue strain of fish with a PB. All you get is heavily peppered PB's as the PB gene is dominant. These fish are not desirable either to have in your tank or to sell to unsuspecting buyers. It just does not sit right with me, but thats my opinion.

Pairing random fish is just pot luck. If you want a project, then get yourself some top quality fish of the same strain, either both PB OR a blue strain, and try to 'breed in' the best aspects of the fish. Could be a project that takes you several years, but that is how it is done.

H :)

[tha_krust]

so then, now my question is this, if i want to CREATE my own strains , is there some kind of pattern or is it completely random (not that i'm going to) ...(purely hypothetical)..ie: lets say you have 2 pair of fish (from different parents) , 1x male PB and 1xBD, and lets say pair 1 gives you blue SS wiould that mean that pair 2 would give you the same or is it completly random?? ..if that at all made sense??

so people are not getting my question.. i said purely hypothetical and "lets say" as in couldnt think of another fish at the time.... anyway i just want to know how it is done (creating strains) Not that i am going to do it....so what hollowman you are telling me ..if i breed 2 different discus i'm not going 1 uniform colour offspring? i may get mix,some of 1 , 1 of the other? and even if i breed 2 of the same strain the same thing could happen??

[Hollowman]

Yes.

It take many generation to get fish to breed true, breeding mother to offspring, sister to brother etc etc. If you get 2 random fish EVEN of the same strain, you will always get throwbacks from their parentage.

So, yes, you are right in your assumption. you will get a mix. But like I say, probably best you do not mix blue and PB.

:)

[tha_krust]

ok thanks

[GreenDiscus]

I have recently moved house with a 500l tank and changed it from black background and black gravel, to light blue background and some Byron Bay Cream gravel. I confirm peppering on PB's definately reduces by doing this !!

On another point in this post, I have four remnants of a past experiment with Yellow PB and Blue, and yes 90% had poor to dreadful peppering just as ILLUSION says, so not recomeneded.

However, just TWO of the 50 or so in the original batch are now full size, and they have defied the dominant PB strain with nice Blue Faces and a light bluish yellow body, although the bars are evident again, as stated, being the blue end of the breeding experiment...

[blackwater spa]

Using an albino fish to breed with a pigeon blood derived fish might theoretically result in some fish with no peppering, although all the fish I have seen bred so far using this method have very poor pinkish red color only. However, further line breeding using these pinkish fish should result in fish with more intense red color and no peppering.

[Love Discus]

Do some research on pedigrees, mendels theorie, and just genetics in general, fish have lots and lots of chromosomes, so predicting offspring colors is very complicated.

Think of humans, can two white skinned, brown eyed humans have a blue eyed baby? yes of course but not likley. Can two blue eyed humans have a brown eyed baby? a little bit more likely. Noww.. can 2 black skined brown eyed humans create a blue eyed white skinned baby? In theory yes, but the chances are extremly slim. just try to research what discus genetics are the most dominant. And try to figure out the pairs pedigree, that is the probably the best way of predicting offspring.

[tha_krust]

cool thanks for that, i find it very interesting and will look further into it

[BobbyBruce]

Hi Krust and LD

Two blue-eyed people cannot give birth to a brown-eyed child. Eye colour, as with all genetically determined characteristics, is reliant on two genes one provided by each of the parents. In regards to eye colour there are two alleles, one for Brown (B) and one for Blue (b). B is the dominant gene so any child carrying the B gene for eye colour will have brown eyes. Therefore the gene pairs BB, Bb and bB will produce brown eyes whereas two copies of b, bb will produce blue eyes. As two blue-eyed people (bb) do not carry the gene for brown eyes (B) they can only produce blue eyed children.

There are many characteristics which are determined by gene pairs, in many of these situations the gene for one characteristic will be dominant over the other, there are also characteristics where genetic factors known as co-dominance and partial dominance which produce patterning (patches, stripes, etc.) or shared dominance producing dilute colours such as greys, blues, etc.

Patterning, colours, shape and size all have some dependence on genetics. To produce fish that have desired colours and patterns it is important to know which “allele” is the dominant gene, how the genes are likely to combine, and, using experience and/or guesswork, put together the fish that you think are most likely to produce what you want.

Regards,

Bob

[tha_krust]

i have the book "trophy discus" which touches slightly on the subject anyone know any other good books that elaborate a little more?