Most orange and orange based red fish are pigeons, but white fish with red eyes are also pigeons.
I was wondering what are some of the common strains that have pigeon genetics? I'm doing my best to stay away from these as I hate the peppering! Thank you for any help.
Most orange and orange based red fish are pigeons, but white fish with red eyes are also pigeons.
Mama Bear
All PB's are barless, but not all barless are PB's. They have really cleaned up the PB lines in recent years so it can be hard to tell if you don't specifically know what to look for.
Some common PB's are - Melons, Passions, Dragons, Butterfly's, Checkerboards...
"All PB's are barless, but not all barless are PB's." OMG, I'm never going to get this down! I'm still having trouble understanding the difference between blue snakeskin and red snakeskin with the different bases and who made this so damn confusing? lol. So I guess the more relevant question would be, which of the barless do not have PB's back in their genes?
Hi Liz, thanks for the information.
So if white fish with red eyes are pigeons, can white fish with different colored eyes have recessive pigeon genes. Also when they have a recessive gene and you breed them with a non-pigeon will they get peppering? My God, someone just needs to write a computer program for all this where I can just punch in the color of the fish and wal lah it spits out the information I want!
Last edited by malcourt; 08-05-2019 at 08:56 PM.
A computer program...that's a joke. What it takes is experience in knowing what to look for.
The red eye is dominate so no, if a white fish has white eyes it is non pigeon. I learned most everything I know about Discus including the various names and strains I learned here. It took time looking at a ton of pictures of both good and poor quality Discus, and trying to sort all the info out in my brain. It didn't just come to me out of the blue.
What Brian said makes sense to me. A poor quality PB will always show faint bars. Stressful conditions can also make bars appear on an otherwise good quality Discus.
Mama Bear
Well when it came to hunting dogs and spending about 35 years crunching their genetics and training them I pretty much had everything down better than most. Because of physical impairments I'm moving to discus and it has been a little frustrating to say the least! I thought being everything I understood about genetics would be a major help to me but so far it hasn't meant diddley!
Okay so wait a minute, if all discus with bars are non-pigeons then why will a poor quality PB always show faint bars. Stressful conditions can also make bars appear on an otherwise good quality Discus.[/QUOTE]
if the PB doesn't have bars to begin with or maybe I understood this incorrectly how when he is stressed can bars appear?
LOL!!! I'm afraid to even ask how a white discus with wide eyes can even be brown based. If I didn't know better I would think you guys are messing with my brain but I do know better than I know everyone takes this very seriously when trying to help an moron like me! I do appreciate all the help from everyone!
if the PB doesn't have bars to begin with or maybe I understood this incorrectly how when he is stressed can bars appear?[/QUOTE]
The Asians who have huge Discus farms and crank out baby fish like crazy will cross a non pigeon with a pigeon in order to get a special trait they're looking for. One example is pigeon snake skin. It takes many generations to breed out the pepper, but it can be done. Also, the first PB were from a mutation from a barred fish. The first pigeons were terribly peppered. It took many generations to breed out the pepper.
If you're looking for a fish you can use your knowledge of genetics with, Angelfish are the way to go.
Mama Bear
If you look closely at the faint bars in a PB, they are actually pepper in the form of bars. You usually see this when someone crosses a PB to non-PB and it's a dirty throwback.
As far as a white discus being brown based, like Liz said, it's all in genetics and selective breeding. Something beyond me, lol...