Question about crosses

[nc0gnet0]

As we have seen many times, crossing a non pigeon blood with a pigeon blood results in the majority of the fry being heavily peppered. My question is, does the same apply, and if so to what degree, if you are to cross two seperate pb's together that are completly different in appearence?

[Rod]

Crossing 2 clean pigeons together will produce mostly clean pigeon, even if they are not closely related.

[nc0gnet0]

Thanks Rod,

I have an albino red melon and a blue mercury that have paired off, figured what the He**, I know both of them are pigeon blood based but both are clean as a whistle. i don't think you can get much further on the spectrum then these two.

[Eddie]

Cool, an Albino Red Merk. Would be an interesting cross.

[Rod]

Problem i see with this is, true i agree an albino red melon will be super clean, but only because the albino gene removes the pepper from view. It is not nessasarilly the same as saying you have a pepper free melon. The red melon may carry a lot of pepper genetically, but there is no way to tell when the albino gene is also incorperated as it completely mask it. What i'm getting at is the cross with mercury may not give you clean fry as you do not know the genetics regarding the pepper of the red melon.
I crossed a golden albino intermediate with an albino red pigeon about a year ago, and kept 4 of the pigeons from the cross. All have the pepper along the nose and fin edges, even though both parents were super clean.
Now i'm not saying the cross you want to do is a bad idea, it may well produce stunning and clean pigeon discus. And all the fry will be albino carriers which i think is very interesting for future breeding experiments. But the colors and patterns you are mixing will lead to a lot of variations in the colors and pattern of the progeny.

[nc0gnet0]

And all the fry will be albino carriers which i think is very interesting for future breeding experiments.

Which Rod is ultimately my end game. I am more interested in breeding small batches of fry for my curiousity and playing (and learning) with different cross's. Currently I have a small batch of juvies from an albino red spotted green x ogon yellow white cross. If I can be succesfull with this second cross (keeping fingers crossed the fry are attaching to the merk today albeit slowly). I will have two groups of F1 albino intermediates to play with and possibly cross one of each together in the future. The ALRG x Ogon Yellow white gave me two distinct type in which I kept, some appear almost golden peach, while the other batch is like a snow white with a faint blue halo and are starting to develope yellow spots. I would like to play with these whites in the future and see if I could come up with something like the calico discus you see from time to time.


Now i'm not saying the cross you want to do is a bad idea, it may well produce stunning and clean pigeon discus.

;) Actually it was more thier idea, I just let it happen. They had paired up in one of my community tanks and the more I thought about it, I figured it could be an interesting cross, so I put them into thier own breeding tank. Even if they fry are badly peppered, I am going to hang onto a few, as even the peppered one would still be albino carriers.

thanks for your input!

[nc0gnet0]

Well they have made it to the one week mark, must be over a hundred and 50 of the little buggers. Lost a few when the female merk freaked out when I was doing a water change (she ate a few). Pulled her from the tank and now dad definatly has his hands full. He has them attaching in shifts, with both sides of his body covered in fry and still 50 or so hanging out at the cone. I was tempted to put mom back in the tank but thought it was a bad idea. At least the fry are attaching to the albino parent, as well as starting to eat BBS.