Discus Genetics ....

[Svante]

Can onyone tell me how to get clean discus (free from black "dust") of the pigeon-family (Marlboro Red etc.) How should one cross to get the cleanest fish ?? I have heard that one should use Wild fish to cross with. I have tried that and many other ways but i`m still not satisfied.....The black pigment seems to be more on the young fish than on teh parents.... So please help me out here if you are into this .....

Svante :)

[Carol_Roberts]

Most times when you cross a PB to a fish with bars you will get MORE peppering. You want to breed very clean PB to other very clean PB to reduce peppering.
Carol :heart1:

I would think LOTS of inbreeding with EXTREMELY selective culling process. You can inbreed up to F10 or even more if you cull very heavily. Then you could try outcrosses and keep the clean ones (and some dirty? as traits may be recessive???) Cary was explaining this to me one time and I took in a good bit of it, but I may have left some out. He was telling me how with Blue Panda broods you could selectively breed and by F10 have successful strains of Blue Diamond, White Diamond, and Blue Panda!!!

Brad

Svante, Goldens are outcrossed with pigeons to improve the pigeonblood strains two ways. 1) To clean up the pigeon black pigmentation and 2) improve on the red eye. This however is not instantanious--especially if the pigeon is very peppery with pigment.

If this your case--then start out with a higher quality pigeonblood to begin with. Background has alot to do with the amount of pepper exhibited. The lighter --the better!
White on the back and two sides will give you an idea of the possibilities of coming clean! Joe ;)

Brad, F 10?????????????????????????????? :o :o :o :o :o :o :o Any discus whose F number resembles a current fighter needs to be shot down in flames!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I know Cary like I know my own brother---but I spent 10 years in the federal pen after my brother had sort of an accident. While cleaning his M 16, he accidentally shot himself 23 times. ;D ;D

My point is, we all tend to shoot ourselves in the foot at times. But Cary has the utmost integrity and would never go past F 3 or F4. Much past F5, the bad recessive genes appear ( short gill plates, bad eyes you name it ) Longtime inbreeding brings about a myriad of deformities and immunity maladies. There is no amount of culling one could do to have anything worth any more than ecoli bacteria. :P

To line breed, you need to backcross and outcross maybe 10 generations ( F10 is not the same thing! ) Mis quoting a well repected breeder can be damaging to that person and I am sure you misunderstood him. There are a number of new people on this and other boards that when armed with bad information, can do as much harm as I did to my brother ( OOps, did I say that?? ) :-X :-X :-X

Don't mean to lecture , but be careful what you think is gospel! Joe ;)