One is different, but what is it?

[kaceyo]

In my spawn of Yellows I got about 20% brown offspring, but one guy is a little like both the yellows and browns. His body color is too light and gold to be a brown though he does have bars. It's also not yellow or gold enough to be a Yellow. He shows no signs of facial striations like the browns. The bars are a lighter shade than on the browns.The bar around his head is darker above his eyes and only a couple of smudges below his eyes. The red in his anal fin is more red than the orange of the Yellows, but have no markings or striations in it like the browns. He is one of the smallest in the spawn. Is he a throwback, a mutation or is there such a thing as a mix of pigeon and barred fish traits in one fish?

Kacey

[Andrew Soh]

Hi Kacey,

Just to have a try on your question. I believe it is not a mutation. Discus phenotype is so complex aand may be controlled by multiple genes (may not be Polyloid..3 or more allele). Each gene controls a small part of the phenotypic expression and may be a combination expressed as one.

That is why you can use a Pigeon(which is known to always accompanied with black peppering) and try crossing out to create a better and cleaner strain. And if you know how, you can split the black peppering from the red of pigeon blood..thus final product being a Strong Red Pigeon Coloring without a single black peppering spot...one that is even better than the Red Golden Diamond.

So what you got may be a hybrid rearrangement of genes from the cross. You get a little bit from the father and a little bit from the mother but not exactly the same as the rest because part of the phenotypic expression of that discus may be a throwback and surprisingly, sometimes, they are interesting traits. Further to that, discus has gone a long way, nobody knows the actual ancesters of the two discus though may be sold under the same name of the same color. Like Blue Diamond, there are different Blue Diamonds of different ancestors or line.

If I were you, I will keep all these and some of their normal siblings for further improvement. Maybe one day, you have a better Yellows than anyone else in the world.

Congratulations!!!!


Take care,
Andrew :angel: