peppered discus

[tcup]

once a discus has devoloped peppering, can it be cleared up or does it stay?
thanks

[TankWatcher]

Do you have it in a planted tank, with darkish background & substrate? I hear that can make peppering worse, but if you remove it to a lighter environment, then the peppering can lessen.

I've been lucky, as my red melon only has slight peppering in my planted tank, even with black background.

[tcup]

the tank is not planted. i do plan to go to a planted setup after i grow the fish out a bit. the substrate and background are dark. maybe i could put a light colored bedding over the eco complete?

[Peachtree Discus]

if you have seen pepper on a fish (pepper has not been bred out)....i believe the pepper will never fully "go away". however, you can help the fish not express as much pepper with your tank setup. lighter backgrounds seem to make pepper clear up. i feel no bottom cover (glass box) helps with this as well...but i have never done any real experiments to provide it....unlike like this guy...

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=66212

[tcup]

thanks for the link. i will follow it and see what he comes up with :)

[ponderingky]

If you lighten the background and the substrate - the peppering will lessen and maybe disappear. I used to have dark substrate w/blue pb's and they all peppered. I changed the dark for pool filter sand (very light colored) and the peppering almost disappeared. I just sold some of my discus to another person w/dark substrate - they also have a red melon that they told me was very peppered. He has since changed to pool filter sand and his wife thought he had bought a new fish - all the peppering was gone. Discus will try to match their environment.

Hope that helps

[Darrell Ward]

Check this picture I lifted from the net. Talk about pepper...

[Graemevw]

We were looking at discus today, i like the peppering. Why are people so against it?

[Hattawi]

I guess if breeders kept crossing heavily peppered discus, they will produce a solid black discus eventually.

[tcup]

if i did add the sand, i assume i would need to remove all of the fish first? i cant change the background as it is painted black. that peppered pic is exactly what my white butterfly looks like. the peppering is not a big deal if you dont mind it, but when you buy a white fish and it is almost black, i find that disappointing (my own fault....should have done more research). some things you just dont pick up until you actually start doing it.
thanks for all the advice.

[Hasseness]

You do not need to take your fish out to add sand. Just make sure to rinse the sand out really REALLY well. I find pool filter sand is less "dusty" Even if you take out the fish...its important to rinse really well. Not rinsing will damage filter impellers.

I get 3 buckets and put the sand about one third of the way. Then I fill with water half way. I use a kitty scoop or a childs sand shovel to stir the sand. It will need to be done about 20 times for each bucket. If you don't want to waste the water. Move your buckets to different gardens in your yard.

[architect1]

if i did add the sand, i assume i would need to remove all of the fish first? i cant change the background as it is painted black. that peppered pic is exactly what my white butterfly looks like. the peppering is not a big deal if you dont mind it, but when you buy a white fish and it is almost black, i find that disappointing (my own fault....should have done more research). some things you just dont pick up until you actually start doing it.
thanks for all the advice.

if your adding sand clean it good and then add water then slowly dump it in. when i pre clean the big chucks of food I dump the sand back in after I duped the crap out and sloshed it around. keeps it clean and white and wet to dump in nicely. it also clears up pretty quickly

[architect1]

also was wondering if copper has anything to do with peppering? the guy at the fish store was trying to sound smart like he knew what he was talking about. I was going to say no but i wanted to ask the guys that would know. i thought peppering was only from the certain strains that have it. Like Pigeons.

[Darrell Ward]

also was wondering if copper has anything to do with peppering? the guy at the fish store was trying to sound smart like he knew what he was talking about. I was going to say no but i wanted to ask the guys that would know. i thought peppering was only from the certain strains that have it. Like Pigeons.

I don't think so. I've never heard that. It's my understanding that pepper is a result of mutation of the genes of a "normal" barred discus. This is found in the pigeon bloodline. The fish has pepper instead of bars. With careful breeding, the noticeable peppering can be bred out. Or at least that's how I understand it. I try to avoid pigeons all together myself.

[tcup]

i am going to try and take some pics. i set up a new tank with sand and light background to see if it would help my white butterfly lighten up, talk about a diffrence :D. thanks again to everyone for their advice.

[rickztahone]

i am going to try and take some pics. i set up a new tank with sand and light background to see if it would help my white butterfly lighten up, talk about a diffrence :D. thanks again to everyone for their advice.

looking forward to pics

[tcup]

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/picture.php?albumid=15&pictureid=113

after
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/picture.php?albumid=15&pictureid=114

sorry about pic quality, still learning:o

[rickztahone]

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/picture.php?albumid=15&pictureid=113

after
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/picture.php?albumid=15&pictureid=114

sorry about pic quality, still learning:o

that deserves a double WOW, that's night and day difference there. as far as loading pics there are two ways (2 ways i know how). the first is you upload them from a website like photobucket.com which is free or you could just simply upload them to SD by going to advance reply i believe it is and click the little paper clip icon and hit browse and find the pic you want to upload. the cool thing now is that the thumbnail upload is much better than the one we had before so the pics upload great. hope that works and the difference on the peppering is outstanding once again

[tcup]

thanks.....this site has helped me a lot. so thanks to you all :)

[adesh8028]

hi tcup,

Could you please let all of us know..what measures did you take in order to get such wonderful results (apart from changing background and substrate)?

Adesh

[TankWatcher]

That's an amazing difference. I really like your discus, he's a gorgeous little guy.

[DiscusDude85]

Very good job!. Looks like you lightened your tank up with that sand. Im sure that helped ALOT!



Joe

[captain morgan]

That is an amazing difference and hard to believe that is the same fish. What was the time span that it took for the fish to clear up so beautifully?

[tcup]

:D:Dthank you all again for your kind words and support :).
adesh, originally i only changed the substrate in the tank that he was in but kept the background dark. he lightened up a lot, but over time got darker again. so i set up a new tank with white substrate (having a heck of a time keeping clean ;) ) and white background. lighting and filtration are similar to what is in the tank he was in originally. it was a matter of days before he lightened up significantly, you can tell by how white the sand is in the pic that he hasnt been in there long :D. it has been about a little over a month and he hasnt shown any signs of heavy peppering.
captain morgan, he cleared up in a matter of days. i also moved over two other pigeon based fish that had heavy peppering (not as bad as the WB) and they also cleared up a lot.
i have had people tell me that the tank they came from must have had poor water quality, but all i can say is that the fish that are still in there are non-pigeon and they are doing great.
all i know is that it worked and i am happy :D
didnt mean to ramble, but thanks again all.

[Esquire]

I have a 7 month old leopard Pigeon that was peppering up in a bare bottom 55 gal tank that was over filtered by more than double the suggested. The background was light sea foam blue. I moved the fish to a 120 gal tank with the same fish very similar BG that was in the 55 gal and 2 days later 50% of the pepper is gone.
I don't know why.

[Patr1ck]

I have a 7 month old leopard Pigeon that was peppering up in a bare bottom 55 gal tank that was over filtered by more than double the suggested. The background was light sea foam blue. I moved the fish to a 120 gal tank with the same fish very similar BG that was in the 55 gal and 2 days later 50% of the pepper is gone.
I don't know why.

Were the surroundings of the newer tank lighter? Like the walls around it or the color of the stand under the tank?

Pat

[Patr1ck]

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/picture.php?albumid=15&pictureid=113

after
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/picture.php?albumid=15&pictureid=114

sorry about pic quality, still learning:o

Holy CRAP!:thumbsup::thumbsup:

Pat

[Esquire]

Were the surroundings of the newer tank lighter? Like the walls around it or the color of the stand under the tank?

Pat

Absolutely no difference, except the BG is slightly lighter but insignificant imo and the new tank is dbl the size. I moved the other tank and put the new tank in it's spot. Both tanks bottoms are painted white.
Very interesting.

[Patr1ck]

Absolutely no difference, except the BG is slightly lighter but insignificant imo and the new tank is dbl the size. I moved the other tank and put the new tank in it's spot. Both tanks bottoms are painted white.
Very interesting.

What about light intensity?

Pat

[Esquire]

I'm using the same lights.

[Patr1ck]

...Very interesting.

Hmm.. It is very interesting. Let us know if you figure that one out.:)

Pat

[Esquire]

I have come to the conclusion that it's 90% stress and Water quality.
5 fish in a 55 gal and 5 fish in a 120 is a hugh difference. The same fish made the move from the other tank so it's not a case of a fish conflict.
The peppering is 75% less than it was in just 3 days in the new tank.
Same food, same water but maybe better due to volume, same lights and almost the same BG.

Fish like big water. Actually all fish in the tank look better so maybe the gal per fish requirements are much higher than people think.