The “Pidgeon Blood” discus, which appeared in the early 1990s as a mutation in Asian discus breeding, revolutionized discus breeding. It combined two characteristics that discus breeders had previously only dreamed of: an early coloration, i.e. already 5-7 cm long juveniles look essentially like adult fish in terms of color. And a second advantage of the mutation: even when in unfamiliar surroundings, the animals do not show the discus dress consisting of vertical stripes, nor do they darken.
The original Pidgeon Blood – the name, by the way, refers to a gemstone (ruby) of the same name – no longer exists. It had too many “freckles”, black speckles irregularly distributed over the whole body. By crossbreeding other discus breeding forms, like red-turquoise etc., the freckle pattern was displaced more and more. Today’s Pidgeon-Blood varieties show them almost not at all.
There is no uniform naming of the many dozens of Pidgeon-Blood varieties. Each breeding farm assigns its own names. A “Pidgeon Blood Panda” is usually understood to be a Pidgeon Blood discus in the color red-turquoise (i.e. red body base color and turquoise pattern elements), in which the turquoise pattern elements form a pattern of unconnected spots (= checkerboard pattern) and parts of the dorsal and anal fin are blackish in color.
For our customers: Pidgeon Blood Panda in 5-7 cm length (as shown in the pictures) have code 714952 on our stocklist. Please note that we only supply wholesale.
Text & photos: Frank Schäfer
