keeping stripe, pattern and solid discus fish in a planted tank gave me an experience on discus fish peppering.
I started with red mellon discus and learned they start to pepper while they grow which was genetic and trying to co-exist with the other discus.
They were given color enhancing vitamins and the pigments were so dark in color that it reduced the black peppering on the body and fins although, the tail remained black.
Their vibrant colors over shadowed the black dotts and enhance the true colors of red melons.
I had them over a year and due to stress and sickness, I lost all of them however, none had over peppered at time of death like stress bars on other discus strains.
With that experience peppering was natural and peppering never happed after a certain size and age in my fish tank.
Now I have got a new checkerboard, solid yellow and red mellon with no peppering during the 1st 3 weeks of the Month. After the 3rd week all the black dotts and black fins and tails started appearing instead of stress bars.
The thing with patterns and stripe discus fish once the stress bars appear it fades away from the discus fish are calm and relaxed.
So this time I want my discus to grow without color enhancing vitamins. The problem with black dotts and peppering is it never disappear once it shows up. The only way is to reduce it with a uniform method all discus hobbiest follow.
So, I tried adding more light to my tank and added more white sand on the substrate to make the tank look more bright and reduce the tails and fins from turning full black. It has reduced the peppering but I still want them to look like the 1st 2 weeks "all white".
I have read on the Internet that blue background tanks defuse peppering in high quality pigeon blood, checkerboard, yellow and red mellon discus fish.
So I would like to know from the experts methods used to defuse peppering condition in discus fish?
I started with red mellon discus and learned they start to pepper while they grow which was genetic and trying to co-exist with the other discus.
They were given color enhancing vitamins and the pigments were so dark in color that it reduced the black peppering on the body and fins although, the tail remained black.
Their vibrant colors over shadowed the black dotts and enhance the true colors of red melons.
I had them over a year and due to stress and sickness, I lost all of them however, none had over peppered at time of death like stress bars on other discus strains.
With that experience peppering was natural and peppering never happed after a certain size and age in my fish tank.
Now I have got a new checkerboard, solid yellow and red mellon with no peppering during the 1st 3 weeks of the Month. After the 3rd week all the black dotts and black fins and tails started appearing instead of stress bars.
The thing with patterns and stripe discus fish once the stress bars appear it fades away from the discus fish are calm and relaxed.
So this time I want my discus to grow without color enhancing vitamins. The problem with black dotts and peppering is it never disappear once it shows up. The only way is to reduce it with a uniform method all discus hobbiest follow.
So, I tried adding more light to my tank and added more white sand on the substrate to make the tank look more bright and reduce the tails and fins from turning full black. It has reduced the peppering but I still want them to look like the 1st 2 weeks "all white".
I have read on the Internet that blue background tanks defuse peppering in high quality pigeon blood, checkerboard, yellow and red mellon discus fish.
So I would like to know from the experts methods used to defuse peppering condition in discus fish?
