Broken stripes

[mscott]

Hey guys just wondering if having broken or not full vertical stripes through the discuses body is a bad thing. Or what does it mean?
Cheers

[Squid]

Basically a result of genetics (phenotypic expression). Discus these days are heavily inbred. Some people call it line breeding but they are ignorant of genetics. Look at dog breeds etc. Find a good Alsation these days??

Well, discus have been crossed in their families genetic heritage for about 30 years. Think of what would happen if people kept crossing their sons and daughters for 30 generations. Deformities everwhere (hi-fin discus maybe??). Crossed lines/ broken lines aren't a big problem. But the cause may not always be inbreeding (just to totally contradict what I have just said). I have a wild caught brown at home with crossed lines!! Phenotypic expression is the physical expresion of the genotype (basically genes). You and you siblings share the same genome, but phenotypically express different traits. My brother has broken lines on his forhead too!!

Cheers

Squid Lipz

[ILLUSN]

Also the powers of natural selection don't apply to a fish tank in the wild fish with broken or crossed lines stand out from the crowd and are removed by predators. Not all fish have perfectly strait bars and with modern color variants showing no bars most of the time their role as camouflage is redundant.

[mscott]

Cheers guys we just noticed it alot more laitly as their main colours have been getting stronger, due to the fact we baught them as juvies