PEPPER spots

[jhamil]

Can some one explain what causes these brown spots? i have 13 different strains in my 90 gal tank, all juveniles. Three of the discus are starting to develop the spots. Can it be stopped? please help.:confused:

[Patr1ck]

Yes it can be stopped. Is the tank bottom or background a dark color?

Pat

[cyberhog05]

I remember being told that some fish (pigeon bloods) will have peppering no matter what while others have it only when they are showing excitement, sickness, stress etc. It is basically the bars our non pigeon strain based discus have. It is not fully bred out or the gene is not carried of some pb discus.
My 2 pigeons are a perfect scenario:

Same fish from same spawn
light background light substrate
1 is peppered way worse than the other.

[jhamil]

I have a black background and white sand.

[rickztahone]

changing the background to a lighter color should help

[Eddie]

Can some one explain what causes these brown spots? i have 13 different strains in my 90 gal tank, all juveniles. Three of the discus are starting to develop the spots. Can it be stopped? please help.:confused:

13 different strains and spots. Do you have pictures?

Eddie

[David Rose]

This is a good questions Jhamil. I normally have had adults in the past and now have all juvies. So.... if they develop a darker color and peppering, will both go away if the background and or substrate is changed to a lighter color? Or will it only be a preventative measure?

I guess I just considered it a part of their development and that it would change as they develop their mature coloring in the first year or so.

Thanks in advance for any responses based on personal experience.

David

[DiscusKev]

This is a good questions Jhamil. I normally have had adults in the past and now have all juvies. So.... if they develop a darker color and peppering, will both go away if the background and or substrate is changed to a lighter color? Or will it only be a preventative measure?

I guess I just considered it a part of their development and that it would change as they develop their mature coloring in the first year or so.

Thanks in advance for any responses based on personal experience.

David

You will only reduce the amount of peppering appearing on the discus; You can increase your lightings too.

[mmorris]

What strain are the three? If you don't know, can you post pics?

[jhamil]

royal pigeon, red melon, and sun discus. Check out my album i have pictures there:)

[Cooldadddyfunk286]

Nice fish bro! I really like the royal pigeon, and the shape of that blue diamond/blue snakeskin is great! lookin nice man. the peppering is just something that comes with not having a light colored bare bottom tank, and having pigeon based fish. If you were to clear out the substrate, plants and decorations, and painted the outside of the tank white on 3 of the 4 sides, that should reduce peppering. but sometimes its just the way the fish is, there may not be a way to totally eliminate the peppering. all depends on if you got clean or dirty birdz (pigeons) :p:D

good luck, take care!

[Cardinal]

I experienced the same thing with my 2 pigeon bloods and my 1 male marlboro red.

The interesting thing is that all the peppering eventually went away. I did not change lighting, substrate or background.

I was wondering if it is related to behavior. I have had my 4 discus togethor for the past 8 months and just recently noticed the peppering came & went from all 3 of them around the same time.