hybrids

[dave76]

what cichlids will make hybrids? The only reason I ask is that I want to avoid this. the only fish I have that are sexually mature at this jucture are a GT and a con, male gt female con. I have a male jack that is still small and a couple of male firemouths. I think the con is gaurding some eggs as she is defending a cave like her life depended on it. I know mixing red devil/midas with severum, what else is there, and under what conditions do cichlid hybridize?

[peifc]

Your fish are alright. None of your fish that mentioned here can breed with the Con, well, none that I heard of.

Blood Parrot can breed with either Midas/Red Devil/Severum. Black and Pearl Cons cross breed. Read that it is better not to do that. Same goes with Blue and Standard Dempseys. I just read an article by Paul Loiselle that Carpinte (Green Texas Cichlid) and Cyanoguttatus (Texas Cichlid) cross breed but to achieve it is hard. Standard Firemouth (Meeki) and Aureus can cross breed but like Texas Cichlid, hard to achieve.

If I find more information, I will let you know.

[DarthV]

Blue Jack Dempeys are not hybrids, they are just fish that are line bred to bring out the recessive blue genes.

You can probably get hybrids of just about any SA/CA cichlids. I've seen a lot of posts on http://www.predatoryfish.net/ forums about people having all kinds of weird mixes.

Please be responsible fishkeepers, if you end up crossbreeding fish do NOT sell them or give them away unless the other party explicitly understands that they are not purebred fish. Or someday it will be impossible to get reliable identification of storebought or tankraised fish. I know I don't want to have to buy wild caught fish just to be sure what I have in my tank.

[dave76]

This is exactly what I am trying to avoid Darth.

[peifc]

Originally posted by DarthV
Blue Jack Dempeys are not hybrids, they are just fish that are line bred to bring out the recessive blue genes.

You can probably get hybrids of just about any SA/CA cichlids. I've seen a lot of posts on http://www.predatoryfish.net/ forums about people having all kinds of weird mixes.


I didn't say they (Blue Dempsey) are hybrids. I'm saying they can cross breed. Why would you want to cross breed between a Blue Dempsey and a Standard Dempsey. Why not try to keep all the fish pure?

[DarthV]

Cross breeding is to get 2 seperate species to produce offspring. Regular JDs and blue ones are of the same species...so if you breed the 2 together, it is not crossbreeding. Same with pink and black convicts...same species, different color morph.


You can get pretty muc any new world cichlid to cross with another new world. It just would be a matter of patience and luck...not sure if you could get a labiatus to cross with an acara naturally (have to be one mean acara!), but it can be done with human interference.

[peifc]

Originally posted by DarthV
Cross breeding is to get 2 seperate species to produce offspring. Regular JDs and blue ones are of the same species...so if you breed the 2 together, it is not crossbreeding. Same with pink and black convicts...same species, different color morph.


You can get pretty muc any new world cichlid to cross with another new world. It just would be a matter of patience and luck...not sure if you could get a labiatus to cross with an acara naturally (have to be one mean acara!), but it can be done with human interference.

OK...wrong choice of words, "cross breed". My point is that they can breed, but better not to.

Like you said, unless it is done with human interference. Even SA/CA cichlids don't necessary will breed together being in the same tank. After reading a few articles by Paul Loiselle, I found out that Texas Cichlid and Carpinte are the same group, yet they don't breed together. Both of these fishes were in the same tank, but the ripe female Carpinte rather court a male Salvini than the male Texas Cichlid. Salvini either was ignoring the Carpinte or didn't catch the intention.

Also, another reason not all CA/SA cichlids will breed naturally because they all have different courting behavior. Even if Dave's female Con was signaling the Male GT, doesn't mean the GT catch the hint.

[dave76]

I think that she does signal him, she constantly chases and swims around him with her gills flared and he ignores her. She is building a nest too. I watched her making a pit last night. I thought she already had eggs they way she was defending her cave, but she just dug the pit so I guess they will come soon.

[peifc]

As long as the GT ignores her, you are alright. If you think it isn't safe, divide the Female Con and the Male GT. If you can move the Con...that will help.

[dave76]

She has only nipped him a few times since I got her, and the violent squabbles have always been over food. I think she is getting the point that he doesnt want her. But she sure does want him. The strange thing about the whole deal is that I could swear she is starting to get a hump.... I didnt know that females could do this. Is this whats happening or am I crazy?

[peifc]

Originally posted by dave76
She has only nipped him a few times since I got her, and the violent squabbles have always been over food. I think she is getting the point that he doesnt want her. But she sure does want him. The strange thing about the whole deal is that I could swear she is starting to get a hump.... I didnt know that females could do this. Is this whats happening or am I crazy?

Nah, you are not crazy. However, not all female has that. Very rarely that I have seen a female has hump. How big is your Con?

Observe the GT's behavior at all time. If the GT said no...pretty much a no. But if see any changes on the behavior...like GT is following the Con...then time to divide.

[dave76]

Shes about 1.5", he is about 4 times her size. I do watch them constantly and I have noticed no such behavior. He never displays any aggressive behavior to any fish in the tank, except for the catfish. He got into a brawl with my striped raphael last night, but that is just a territorial battle for a tree stump.

[peifc]

Hmm....too soon to have a hump. Let's hope that she didn't bump her head :D jk

Joking aside, maybe your Con is one of the rarity of female Con. My female Con is 2" and got a smooth top. However, my male Con at 2" has started to develop a little hump.

My GT is like yours. He doesn't chase or bite other fish unless it is fighting over food. Apparently, my GT was starved in the past. Now he just can't get enough of food. My GT picks on the Pleco whenever he finds that fish in his cave. He feels like a king in that tank without the Male Con. Hope he will feel this way still when I put that Con back in that tank.

Here is a site maybe will put you at ease about your female Con.

It did mention about the hump on female.

http://cichlidresearch.com/sexingcichlids.html

[dave76]

disregard this post

[Harry Tolen]

Just to go back to the Blue Dempsey point for a moment, in the interests of clarity. Blue Dempseys are indeed a mutation and not a hybrid, but are almost always minimally fertile when bred to each other. To produce more Blue Dempseys, they are bred back to standard Dempseys, which produces a generation of fish that look like standard Dempseys but carry the recessive Blue Dempsey gene. Then those fish are bred to each other, producing approximately 25% Blue Dempseys.

[ChilDawg]

I think that the usage of "cross-breeding" was valid in this case.

"Cross-breeding" is used to describe having a sire of one breed and a dam of another, when it comes to dogs. All domestic dogs are Canis familiaris, so these aren't hybrids!

Hybrids and "cross-breeds" are different...one refers to an INTERspecific mating and the latter is used to denote an INTRAspecific mating.

[Monglor]

I found out that Texas Cichlid and Carpinte are the same group, yet they don't breed together.

Thats not entirely true. I've kept Texas cichlids with carpintes many times. They will breed quite readily. Its happened to me on several occasions. These are my 2 favorite cichlids. I've been keeping them for 16 years now. I've had both sexes of the 2 fish in the same tank and they will breed with whoever is willing.

[peifc]

Wrong choice of words on my side. I know they can breed together, but it really depends on the fish. However, rarely in wild that they will breed because both came from different Rivers.

I didn't say I have experienced in Texas Cichlids. If you have...that's great, but for me, I rather like to keep them apart...let them breed within their own. What I stated about Texas Cichlid and Carpinte, I learned that from Paul Loiselle. I never...ever said that I SAID SO. Your Texas Cichlid and Carpinte breed together is rare...according to him...not many chances that they actually will.

[ChilDawg]

If I'm not mistaken, what Dr. Loiselle said was that it was rare in the wild when they overlap habitats. It is possible in captivity, and very likely as many of the former Cichlasoma spp., especially those still held in the same genera as each other, are not yet divergent enough to avoid hybridization in captivity.

[peifc]

Actually, in his article about Herichthys cyanoguttatus (Texas Cichlid) comparing with H. Carpintis, "In a free choice situation, these two fish will not hybridize. Indeed, I suspect that even forced hybridization of these two cichlids might prove extremely difficult to effect. I have seen a widowed, obviously very ripe female green Texas actively courting a male C. salvini while totally ignoring the overtures of a male H. cyanoguttatus living in the same aquarium."

As for in the wild...it is almost impossible because these fish don't live together in the same river unless someone released an aquarium Carpinte into Texas Cichlid area, northeastern Mexico. Even than, I don't know if the Texas Cichlid in the wild really know what to expect of the Carpinte.

[ChilDawg]

I could see the Cyanoguttatum picking and choosing mates, but in a no-choice or little-choice situation, I don't see why a Carpinte wouldn't be considered to be a viable choice...As you've said before in your other posts, Cichlids are choosy...and maybe the Cyanoguttatum in Loiselle's quote is just picky in that case.

[peifc]

Maybe, but I doubt that. Carpinte and Texas Cichlid were forced to mate a lot of times is due to "no choice" situation. If there was a male carpinte for that ripe female...who do you think the female will choose, Carpinte, the TC or the Salvini? IMO, I think it has a lot to do with sexual evolution. A female rather looks for a mate that can give her great looking kids....stronger...and be able to survive and etc. Maybe, the female Carpinte didn't see what the Texas Cichlid could provide for her and her off springs.

I'm not saying that they (TC and C) can't and don't breed. I'm saying that in nature they don't do so easily (almost impossible unless interfere by human). And in tank only because they were being put in the situation...if there were only Carpinte and Texas Cichlid and no other fish.

And honestly, why would we want to breed these fishes together? Why can we try to keep them pure? And I'm sure many people out there are looking for pure breed trimac (FH was mistaken as Trimac), or Midas, or Red Devil, or other famous fishes.

Like my Carpinte, she is pure breed. And I don't plan on breeding her with a Texas Cichlid. To do so, possibly will cause the next generation...pattern and color not as great. And I have planned on getting another Carpinte from Jeff Rapps to breed this beautiful specie, 'Escondido'.

As for the article, was Dr. Loiselle supposed to state every case he witnessed? Or was he supposed to conclude from his observation and experience? He would not state all that if he didn't have enough data to support his theory.

[ChilDawg]

Okay, I should point out here that I don't like seeing the two bred, but I am amazed that the Cyanoguttatum would pick other, less-related, cichlids for breeding purposes. Maybe this would be a strong argument for splitting the genus Herichthys as it currently stands???

[peifc]

That was actually the whole point of the article by Dr. Loiselle. He was arguing about the breed of Herichthys, 3 fishes from the same group, but they are different from each other. (Whole article was mainly about Texas Cichlid.)

As I mentioned...what the Carpinte did (mentioned in Dr. Loiselle article), possibly could be due to sexual evolution (selecting the best) and nothing to do with the fish from same group, IMO. Dr. Loiselle was trying to make a point to UK researchers. I mean...honestly...many SA/CA cichlids are different from each other even though they could be from the same groups...like Amphilophus, Geophagus, Parachromis, Nandopsis, and etc.

We can't assume that the species from the same group will breed willingly with each other. AND neither should we breed them together. Who knows what kind of fish we can create from human interference. Like my mix Blood Parrot, his sire was a midas and mom was Tailess Blood Parrot (I didn't breed them). Sure they can breed, but would they breed willingly if they were in free choice situation? I doubt that heavily. Due to this human interference, my mix Blood Parrot was created. This fish has unpredictable temper. And his hardiness is stronger than his parents. It is good in a way...to be able to survive all hardship/water...but he is deformed in a way (slow swimmer). And there is always a but for hybrid/cross breed/......

[ChilDawg]

I must have been thinking about a different article then...

Okay, I see. I don't like hybridization either...but there are some useful applications. Did you know that many of the Angelfish commercially available are Pterophyllum scalare/P. altum hybrids? This helped alleviate the problems with the Angelic plague.

[Tiger15]

Do you know that most domesticated live bearers are hybrid of Swordtail, Platy, Molly and Variatus? Very few pure breed live bearers can be found in domesticated stock.

Do you know that all domesticated Discus are hybrid of several wild species or subspecies depending on how they are classsified. Domesticated discus are the most engineered fish that come up with numerous color and pattern that will never be found in the wild.

Do you know that domesticated Red Devel are hybrid decendents of Midas and Labiatus? Wild red form Midas and Labiatus are rare and they are not as intesely red as domesticated Devel. the most intensely red Devel are the Blood Parrots, which are actually matuant Red Devel, not a new hybrid as most believe.

Do you know that many farm raised food fish, such as Tilapia, Striped Bass and Salmon, are hybrid? Environmentalists are concerned that many farm raised Salmon have escaped and cross bred with wild Salmon tereby reducing gentic diversity.

Do you know that natural hybrids do occur in wild fish, though extremely rare. At least one fresh water live bearer and one coral fish bibrid have been documented.

[Tiger15]

Originally posted by peifc
actual Red Devil is better coloration and thicker lips than the domestic one. That's where Blood Parrot's color comes from. AND Red Devil can be found in Great Lakes of Nicaragua.

People breed hybrids for money. I have nothing against hybrid in general being in the market because I have Blood Parrots and other mix Blood Parrots. However, I do not plan to breed them or release them into the wild like many people just because they don't have room. Well, I'm sure you can imagine what fish can come out from that little mishaps.

I went into "The Cichlid Room Companion" and read (ask Pam) that Blood Parrot is hybrid...man made fish.

There was an article in the FAMA about a hobbyist who went to Nicaraquen fish market and took picture of many Midas food fish. They are only pinkish red, not as strongly red as domesticated ones.

Blood Parrot hybrid heritage has been the best kept lie or rumor that even cichlid experts like Pam, Ron Coleman and Dr. Louriselle have quoted it without question. A recent article in the TPH suggests that Blood Parrot is actually a mutant with recessive genes similar to Blue Dempsey and this is why BP and BD are infertile but can only be bred with another normal Devel or Dempsey.

[peifc]

If a person can't tell the differences between a Midas and Red Devil...and can mess up the name...this debate is pointless.

[MASSMAN2]

As far as Im concerned Midas and Red Devils are the same fish if you ask me. They are just changing the names of these fishes every 10-15 years.

Just like the Festae is now called the Red Terror!:confused:
Just like the Manguense is now called the jaguar cichlid:rolleyes:

Fish store owners are just changing names to make the hobbyists think that they have some new fish on the market.
At a local fish store in Maryland, there is a particular owner who is breeding Festae's with Flowerhorns to create a new cichlid called the Golden Butterfly. Just wait until that hits the market!!!

[peifc]

Midas and Red Devil are two different fish. They are from the same lake, but they do have different physical features.

Midas scientific name is Amphilophus Citrinellus. Red Devil scientific name is Amphilophus Labiatus. LFS do breed these to fish together and sell them out as Red Devil. It is hard to find pure breed Red Devil today, unless you got them from Jeff Rapps. Even in the wild, Midas and Red Devil will breed together. I don't know how often. Dr. Paul Loiselle said unless they are in "no choice" situation. *shrug*

As for Red Terror...that's commen name for Amphilophus Festae. Jaguar is commen name for Parachromis Managuense.

[Haggisman]

Well nobody knows for sure how the blood parrot came about(even so called cichlid experts).But I would be more inclined to say they are severley inbred Midas cichlids(possibly red devils)than a midas/rd x severum.In fact if there was another cichlid involved then I highly doubt it was a severum.More likey a red head cichid or black belt.

[Haggisman]

Originally posted by peifc
"the most intensely red Devel are the Blood Parrots, which are actually matuant Red Devel, not a new hybrid as most believe."

I hope you don't really believe that...and ended up giving people wrong information in the future. I went into "The Cichlid Room Companion" and read (ask Pam) that Blood Parrot is hybrid...man made fish. Do get accurate information before you mention something like that in the forum. AND Blood Parrot started in Asia...and YES, it is hybrid. AND they have just also imported another kind of Blood Parrot...called KingKong Blood Parrot that has the same body as Midas, the mouth can be able to close, can be aggressived, develops a hump as it gets older, and can get to 12" or 14".

How I know? I saw that at my LFS. And how I know they are aggressive? Flowerhorn was housed in the same tank as that fish. And that FM was running for his live.

Who says your information is right.........;)

[Haggisman]

What I'm saying is that you dont have any solid proof that a blood parrot cichlid is a hybrid between two species yet you basically told another member that they were.Not only that but you told them they were wrong in thinking they were inbred red devils/midas.

Until someone has solid proof then its just one persons opinion over the over the other, so there are no right or wrong answers;)

I personally think that blood parrots are the result of a freak mutatated red devil/midas that was then line bred to produce the BP we know and love(or in many cases hate).But I certainly would not tell someone else this as gospel.

[robbryan]

I have a female texas cichlid and a male green terror is it poss for them to breed and if so what would it look like hybrids are cool.

[Jill-O]

I realize it's not the "cool" thing to admit, but I love our hybrid fish. We have some blood parrots and they're just pets! They really interact with us. And TODAY, we just got a flowerhorn. I've wanted one for some time and just recently discovered that there is an awesome LFS in Annandale, VA that has tons of them. Found one we liked and brought him home -- Yay!!!

[BadFishPa]

Ok heres my thought..Why worry about them cross beeding in your tank,just kill off the fry and no harm done if you dont want hybreds..

[Lab_Rat]

Zombie thread.