Suggestions/Advice requested

[rerdragon1977]

Ive included a picture of my 90g for refference. The rainbows are gone and the tank is running with amano shrimp and a farowella cat right now. i have sourced a nice young pair of PB's with no peppering that i can see. They are small (4inches) and have a bit to grow. I would love to put them in this tank to contrast against the green but i am alittle worried about them peppering up due to the dark substrate and background. I have quite a bit of light above the tank so its nice and bright. Could someone here speak to the peppering issues and am i pushing it introducing them into this tank? I could always go back to my loved B. turqs but it would be nice to add the PB's if they wouldnt pepper.

[DiscusDrew]

In my experience, (I raise and breed pigeons pretty much exclusively) putting them in that tank will not cause them to pepper as bad as it possibly could depending on the genetics of course.... HOWEVER they WILL pepper in that tank. You can decrease the risk by lightening the substrate color, and changing the background color to basically white, but in general I dont recommend pigeons to most of my customers in heavily planted tanks because they tend to pepper worse, lightly planted is fine, but thats pretty thick in there my friend. JME HTH

[rerdragon1977]

thanks for your comments. I would hate to take some beautifyl fish and not allow them to grow into their full potential

[TNT77]

You could try some albinos they would be a bright contrast in that tank and they wont darken.

[wannadivesteve]

On peppering, I've got questions as well. What happens if you grow a PB out to 5-6+ inches, reasonably close to full size? Is peppering inevitalbe in a tank with a darker background/substrate/planting, or is it something that happens primarily as they grow?

[DiscusDrew]

As they grow in my experience dark backgrounds and the like can cause peppering that can be very difficult to reverse if even possible. When they get older, the peppering will still come out in a dark atmosphere, however it usually is to a lesser degree (under the bottom lip first usually) and it can fairly readily be reversed when placed back in the correct environment. To directly answer your question, yes, they can and will always pepper in the wrong environment.