Genetics and naming Convention: Red Melon

[JeffreyRichard]

Second Strain assessment ...

Please add your observations/understanding/knowledge ...

RED MELON

Genetic Background (origin) Pure Strain? What do you get when you spawn two? Common (marketing) names

Please post early and often!
Pictures are GOOD!

I will summerize after the posting seems to cool in this topic ... I'm hoping we can capture the concensus in a reference document somewhere on this site (Al or Ryan?)

Jeff

I'm surprise there is no response on this topic. Almost every discus keeper are looking for Red Melon at one time or another. Let me start off by saying my conclusion of a Red Melon is a higher grade Pigeon Blood with a yellow base. With generations of selective breeding to eliminate black pepper dusting. Resulting a very red similar to the Marlboro Cigarette packaging which has red fins replacing the traditional pigeon blood black fins. they always have some sort of black peppering at stress or carrying fry.

The Red Melon that won the red Category in discus competitions do not come from Pigeon blood family. Most came from the brown ghost or snow white family which do not carrying the Black Dusting genes. Some breeder may call them Red Cover , Mandarin Passion or Fuji from Japan. This may answer Larry's question posted earlier of which is the redess non-pigeon blood fish. They are different type of fish than the traditonal Marlboro Red Melon.
Jimmy.

[Rod]

My understanding of the red melon is it was originally derived from pb crossed with red brown to make the marlbro red. Improvements to the amount of black dust called for a renameing to red melon. The latest generation are almost without dust due to crossbreeding with the golden discus, they are called mandarine passion.

They are not a dominant gene so when crossed out will produce a great variety in the offspring.

Rod

[Willie]

So we have a disagreement? Jimmy says Mandarin Passions do not derive from pigeons, but Rod says they do. Any tie breakers?

Willie

Willie: Just naming difference. This is also part of the trade secret in Asia for several years. Poeple were wondering why some Red Melon has no black dust and super red. Without knowing the origin of the fish. They were suspecting the breeders had secret hormone given to the fish to reduce black dust and intensify their red color.The breeder can pratically call them anything they want. I just call them Red Pigeon or Red Ghost to differentiate the origin of the fish.
Jimmy.

What do you call this fish? Red cover, Red Melon, Red Doll, Super Red, Madarin Passion. No color enhanced or hormone. It's her original color. I call it a red Pigeon. Most breeders in competition will not honestly tell you how they created the champion.
Jimmy

[crimson cross]

The breeding genetics of every serious breeder is generally not revealed so information attained through the grape vine is only educated speculation at best. Not knowing very much about the development of the red discus, I tend to believe that Rod and Jimmy are both right..in some ways.

btw, nice red pigeon, Jimmy.

[SLY]

Red melon, super melon or mandarin passion..they all have pigeon gene..NO white gene at all, please try crossing out white fish with a red fish and tell me what you get..majority of the fries will be white with a little red at f1, so Jimmy I don't agree with you melon are from white.

[SLY]

my white cross.
http://www.aquarealms.com/albums/album04/adrw.jpg

[crazy4discus]

nice red discus

[alex_m]

Hi,

what makes some melons have white face and other be totally red?

alex

[trucdan]

I brought some Red melons from an oversea breeder. They did have a little bit pepering when they were small. The breeder told me that his fish are developed from Albino and that little pepering is refered as "Abnino Dust". The pepering is gone when the fish are about 3" or so.
Trucdan

[SLY]

Trucdan I don't understand the albino dust part..care to explain more.

[trucdan]

I don't know about it either Sly. The fish I bought had some Very fine pepering. The pepering are very tiny and the color is not that instense as seen in Pigeon blood/Tangerine/Mallboro and the like.

When I asked the breeder about that, he told me those tiny pepering are called "Albino Dust" because the fish are developed from crossing (with what he didn't tell me) with Albino discus. He also told me that Red melon which have "Albino dust" will have a very solid Red color when they reach 3.5-4" and the dust will disappeared at this stage.

Tell you the truth, I didn't believe it at first. But when my fish growth up, they look exactly as what the breeder told me. I am very happy with those fish I got from him.

Trucdan

[Rod]

Some asian price lists advertise albino discus, but they are not the true albino that western people have in mind when they think of true albino, that is red pupils and no melanin. It's not so common these days since the true albino discus is becoming somewhat available but it could explain the confussion that trudan has with his exporter. I know i was confussed the first time we ordered "albino" discus and they were not true albinos. What we received were golden colored discus with red eyes but they were just a form of PB.

Here's a pic of a true albino discus that i took

[JeffreyRichard]

Cary ... can you comment?