Peppering on Spotted Butterfly fry???

[Hooked]

Hi Gang,

I am growing out some Brown Spotted Butterfly fry. They are about 20c piece size now and exhibiting slight peppering. Seem super healthy though, eat like pigs. Frozen Brine shrimp with the once every two-three day finely ground beef heart mix. Also the super clean parents are starting to pepper. I know that they will usually pepper around breeding time to darken up but I'm concerned that something in the water chemistry etc is causing it??
My ph is a steady 6.5, 50% water changes a day, its just treated tap water with Supa Chlor and Seachem acid buffer. The hardness from memory is slightly harder than it should be for discus. I know I need to be more specific but I'm about to head out with the family. I'll test for gh and kh later this arvo when back. Anything else to test for???
I'm thinking I may need to lower ph a little? Also maybe a 2 stage filter for hardness etc?
If you have had luck with reducing peppering please let me know.

Thanks for your time,

Cheers

[swifto]

Hi Nigel,I've read some where that pigeon base discus ar prone to peppering more than others,a ph of 6,light color back ground and sub straight will help reduce this.

[Hooked]

Hi Rob, Thanks mate. I have been told ph of 6 earlier today also so I will reduce it slightly. Its a bare bottom grow out tank with a blue painted background. I don't really want to reduce hardness etc if I don't have to. I will start with the easy ph lowering first and see how it goes. If it works I'll be stoked as I'm hoping to have some hardy fish here to move on and not to fussy. Also once you mess with the kh, gh, I believe it can cause problems with the stability of the ph,

Cheers mate

[boxters]

Peppering is largely genetic. There is nothing you can do to remove it

[Hooked]

Hi Marlon,

When they arrived the parents were spotlessly clean. Now they are exhibiting the peppering. I know its normal for them to darken when breeding but I've noticed the fry are showing signs also. I'm keen to lower the ph to see if it helps?
I remember you had the two stage filter for your private set up and since I've wondered if it would help? On the other hand I'm trying to grow something that is happy in local conditions here? Perhaps I should try breeding something not so susceptible to peppering? Ah, Its all a learning process : )

My best regards to your family,

Cheers, Nigel

[boxters]

Nigel even if the parents are spotless pigeon bloods are predisposed to peppering. In a spawn there wil be a mix of no peppered fish and peppered fish. You have got a few peppered fish

[Nev]

Wot Marion said.
All pigeon bloods can have peppering (and only pigeon bloods) just as all discus darken with young, your pigeon bloods are doing there best to darken for their young.That's why the peppering has appeared.

Changing the ph or hardness won't make one iota of difference, it'll only upset the fry.

[Hooked]

Cool,

thanks guys. I was just worried that maybe I have not provided the best environment.
In your experience would you say there is a chance the parents will lose there peppering again? I know Its a hard question.
It will be interesting to see the ratio of peppered to clean as they grow. I didn't realise it was only pigeon based that pepper.

Thanks for all the advice as always,

Cheers

[FinVision P/L]

I agree the pigeon blood gene has a pepper pigment, this pigment is more exposed in some fish than others, the ones with no pepper are considered higher quality fish but this peppering is hidden they still have it but they better equipped to camouflage it. If your fish arrived in your tank clean of pepper when you first took delivery then it is a good quality pigeon blood and you should be able to get it back to their clean state, I also agree that the substrate and background have a major impact on peppering including hardness Ph. It is normal for Discus to try and blend in with their environment, and the pigeon blood will use what ever they can do to blend in, if they have any dark pigment at their disposal then they will use it, this is evident in a post by swifto about his eruptions he purchased from Marlon, (nice fish) see http://www.discusforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23529 In Marlon’s tanks he has a very light background, and when swifto took them home. they now look much darker considering the background is darker and their is a planted tank an d darker background. I also agree some lower quality pigeons will never loose the Pepper pigment. We have many Pigeons in stock and they will pepper if they are in a dark tank, but within about 3 to 4 weeks they will loose it if we put them in a light colour tank with good lighting and ph of 6. So one big point to remember DARK=DARK and LIGHT=LIGHT.I can only say that this will make a difference if your adults expressed clean in the first place. One more observation if you look at all the competition photos from Aquarama and alike, all pigeons are in Light colour tanks!!! I hope this helps

[rex82]

Best way is to steer clear of pigeon lines if you don't like pepper.

[Hooked]

Hi Brian,
thanks for the reply. Yes, whilst my display tank is fairly light, the actual refuge areas are all very dark drift wood. Hollow logs etc. The Butterfly parents are both healthy and lay eggs regularly so I'm happy with that. My breeding tank came with a very dark Blue background also which probably didn't help. Its a type of contact adhesive so I'm going to change it to white as an exercise to see if the peppering lessens on the parents when they are in there next. As they tend to darken at breeding time it may well make little difference.
The young ones in the grow out tank have lightened up a lot since first posting this. The majority are clear of peppering now. My main problem was bacterial. It was weakening the fish and the peppering was a result of not being very happy. As Marlon mentioned there would be, a few are still peppered. They are mainly the runts. This has been my first batch that I have attempted to grow out and I've definitely learnt a lot. I'm feeding less and pre treating the change water with Potasium Permangenate and Hydrogen Peroxide. They seemed to become much more active after the use of the PP and HP in treating the change water. I'm also definitely getting a UV before attempting another batch.

Cheers

Hi rex82,
you are probably right. Although as a relative newbie I've actually found the peppering a blessing in disguise. Its been a good indicator of when the fish are not happy. My problem was knowing what to do about it when they were unhappy. Is it Flukes? Is it bacterial? Internal? External? etc etc
I wish I knew what I know now (still probably not much!) when I started to grow out the fry. Hindsight is always 20/20 they say. : )

Cheers to all

[rex82]

A higher nitrate reading seems to make them pepper up a little more as well, if that's any help.
If you are attempting to sell the fry down the track I find it better to keep them in a darker tank, that way it's easier to see the undesirables and cull them out saving you the time and money in growing them out any more than you have to.

UV..... You will find mixed feelings about using UV on fry for grow out, I used it for a bit and found that it helped my losses but when I sold the fry off to other hobbyists they had issues with the fish in their systems because they weren't running UV, my guess is it suppresses the immune system of the fish making it susceptible to the next thing that comes along in their new homes. Once removing the UV the strong prevailed and had a lot better results in the long term.

I'm not saying it's crap straight out, it's just my own observations and the beat lessons learnt are the ones learnt yourself, HTH.

Like I said with the pigeon gene, always created more headaches than they were worth with arguements over pepper. absolute PITA. Lol

[Hooked]

Hi rex82,
great info thanks mate and definitely food for thought. Always great to hear first hand experience.
Your mention of the Nitrate level made me check and I see its at about 5.0ppm (in the display), quite low. I'm going to keep a closer eye on it as it always use to be zero. The adults in there have grown a fair bit over the last year. Larger fish, more waste I suppose. It's water change day tomorrow for the display tank. I'll up my change frequency in it and see if it has an effect on the few pigeon based adults I have. Its no big deal if no change (don't really expect any), I'm just interested. Just glad the young ones seem sorted in the grow out... for now. I'm going to keep growing them out at this stage. I'm enjoying watching them grow and change.

Cheers