i have a discus that is red but it seems to have brown or black discoloration on the top of it. This doesnt seem to affect him at all but i was just wondering if some are born with this or if is messed up and i can fix it.
Discus with brown/black discoloration
- Thread starter DaGreenMonster
- Start date
Is it peppering? If your fish is a pigeon blood discus, they can have peppering if the tank background/substrate is dark. A picture would help.
its actually in my friends tank but i will try and get a picture but its sounds like peppering might be the caseryansmith83;4646942; said:
ryansmith83;4646942; said:
It doesn't cause the peppering, only brings it out more. Peppering is a result of a mutated gene found in the pigeon blood strain of discus. Any fish with pigeon blood genes will also carry this mutated gene. This results in spots, or "pepper", instead of the normal bars found on other discus. The bars are to help break up the silhouette of the fish to help it blend into it's surroundings. The pepper will act as the bars on these fish. This is why a dark background can bring out the pepper on the fish.
hillbilly;4648641; said:
I realize that, I've typed that in many threads here and at SimplyDiscus. If the fish are not high quality pigeon types, they may show it even with light substrate. However, high grade pigeons may not show it until it's brought out by stress or dark colors, which is why I said "caused by." Sorry, I should have been more specific. But yes, if the fish was purchased without the peppering and then got put into a dark tank or a tank with questionable water quality/tankmates/anything to induce stress, it could have seemingly appeared out of nowhere for this reason.