Crossbreeding

[slicklid]

Just a question, not a problem in my tank... but I'm curious.

Does the overall consensus say that crossbreeding is frowned upon? Cull the young or let them be eaten?

What if a crossbred fish turned out to be quite unique and appealing? Would two of those then breed to produce more that look just like them? I am not educated on the consequence of crossbreeding fish (ie. two different mbuna).

Food for thought.

[jm1212]

yes, hybridizing is frowned upon.

most will tell you to euthanize the fry or use them as feeders.

in the event your fish do hybridize, NEVER give them out to anyone else. sometimes it is ok to keep one or two fry to see what the adults would turn out like, but ONLY as yours.

[Sarge_857]

if you personally think the fish is cool, i say keep it! screw what everyone else thinks. heck people cross breed all the time (no offense to anyone) but its cool and all.

[wataugachicken]

say you have a couple fish in your tank that breed together. the babies turn out really cool-looking. so you keep them, and sell them. well, you told those buyers or that LFS that the fish were hybrids, but eventually they 'forgot' or just didn't bother to tell the next people who bought them. now those people think they have some unique pure fish or color strain, when in reality it's a hybrid. if that fish breeds with another fish, the people have no idea what they are selling.

i think it is frowned upon because you just don't know what you're getting when crossbreeding enters the picture. while it would be nice to think that everyone is honest and knowledegable, some people just aren't - whether by ignorance of the situation or trying to make a quick buck on 'fake' fish.

or maybe the babies look very unique. someone buys few of them, and those siblings breed together. now THOSE babies are weird - some look exactly like one 'grandparent' species, some look like the other 'grandparent', some look like the parents and some look completely different altogether. less ethical people might sell the look-alikes as pure fish instead of as hybrids, and less educated people won't know the difference.

[slicklid]

See, now we have a discussion. I understand what you are saying wataugachicken. And I agree. I just wonder how over time a new species just pops up. Like in the dog world for instance, you have breeders selectively breeding certain dogs with a premium genetic makeup, over time you have a dog that looks very dissimilar to its great great grandparent because it was bred a certain way. I just wonder how that works in the fish world. I know that a lot of people frown upon Parrots, they are like the pug dog of the fish world, pugs have snouts that make it difficult to breathe in certain conditions and therefore they have a lot of issues, like parrots with their tiny mouths, I'm sure would make them a very weak species in the wild. But will there ever be a crossbreed that will be coveted?

[kimbo3311]

well, yea if you are going to keep them for yourself, then I would think it's ok, but don't sell them. genetic contamination is a very serious thing. It's a problem with Tilapia right now... you can't find a pure strain of O. niloticus or aureus, there is no such thing anymore.

[Sarge_857]

well, yea if you are going to keep them for yourself, then I would think it's ok, but don't sell them. genetic contamination is a very serious thing. It's a problem with Tilapia right now... you can't find a pure strain of O. niloticus or aureus, there is no such thing anymore.



not to sound cruel but tilapia are tasty:silly:........ but yea i get what your saying. how big of a tank do you need for a tilapia anyways?

[wataugachicken]

See, now we have a discussion. I understand what you are saying wataugachicken. And I agree. I just wonder how over time a new species just pops up. Like in the dog world for instance, you have breeders selectively breeding certain dogs with a premium genetic makeup, over time you have a dog that looks very dissimilar to its great great grandparent because it was bred a certain way. I just wonder how that works in the fish world. I know that a lot of people frown upon Parrots, they are like the pug dog of the fish world, pugs have snouts that make it difficult to breathe in certain conditions and therefore they have a lot of issues, like parrots with their tiny mouths, I'm sure would make them a very weak species in the wild. But will there ever be a crossbreed that will be coveted?

well a lot of people use this as an example, but the truth is that all dogs, from the little pomerarian to an italian mastiff, are the same species. we have simply taken the original wolf and used our power to pick and choose which traits we want to pass on. then once we did that, we took ALL the dogs and made them into a specific species in the canine family. it's a very very easy mistake to make - i mean, it seems so obvious because the range of dogs is so variable, but genetically and anatomically they are the same. or like all horses - a shetland pony is much different from an arabian or a clydesdale, but they have the same original ancestors. if you took a variety of dogs, let them run free and mate with each other over a long period of time, they would most likely revert back to a 'primitive' coloration and body type, though probably not all the way back to being wolves.

however, it takes a lot of time for new fish species to appear and actually be classified as a different species. you have to take into account not just coloration, but specific points of anatomy (including internal differences), habitats, eating habits, mating behaviors, etc. just take into account many of the smaller convict-like fish, including Honduran Red Points. are they a color (and size, and temperment, and location) variation of what we know as convicts, or an entirely different species? They do not yet have a species name because it is undetermined. new species also must breed true - which gets rid of a lot of hybrids because they do not breed true or have difficultly breeding in the first place. the factors for deciding whether or not something is a new species really do not apply to anything bred artificially or in a tank. blood parrots for example, do not have a nabitat or location where they can be found in the wild. do they like fast flowing rivers? wide calm places in a river? south america or central america? their native habitat is simply "aquarium". without actually living in/coming from the wild naturally, i don't think any hybrid, even after years of selective breeding and etc. could ever be classified as a new species. they're, to put it bluntly, artificial.

[Sarge_857]

very true chicken, very true indeed.

[slicklid]

I like your thought process on this... :iagree:

[wataugachicken]

this isn't to say that i am against hybrids. some blood parrots or other cichlid crosses are pretty neat looking. i'm against people who are stupid and misleading about hybrids. i don't want a convict/honduran hybrid if it's sold under false pretences (and price tag) of a pure HRP. I don't want to buy an endler just to find out later it's a hybrid and my entire endler tank is now under suspicion and basically worthless. i don't want to buy what i think is a yellow lab or whatever african species and then have it kill everything else because *oops* even though it looks just like a yellow lab, it's a hybrid and inherited super-aggressive tendencies from one parent. if i decide that I want a trimac, i want a trimac and not a crappy flowerhorn.

in fact, while i want to raise my hrp fry to sell them, i worry a little bit that they will fall into the 'wrong hands' and the genes that make them so special will be lost when some idiot puts them in with a convict. if that person doesn't understand the problem of hybridizing and sells those fish as hondurans, it makes me and any other breeder look bad.

[mr.key]

I think the problem comes down simply to the fact that we want specific kinds of fish for specific reasons. If we could not be certain of how to care for or what to expect from the fish that we buy it would be extremely difficult to responsibly keep them.

I think I am restating and adding to chickens comment.

[blue_convicts]

well first problem with crossbreeding is that the fish probably will be unfertil... and they could develope growth problems/ others so i see that you have tried to croos breed a already cross bread jellyfish with a convict...i mean why would you want to do that ?

[kay-bee]

...I just wonder how over time a new species just pops up...I just wonder how that works in the fish world...

"Over time" translates to thousands and thousands of years of natural selection. It can be said that species development is the result of localized adaptation rather than sucessful hybridization. In the wild if Fish Species A cross breeds with Fish Species B, their progeny are likely to be outcompeted by the parent species and/or significantly hindered by environmental challenges. However if a small population of Fish Species B became geographically separated from the rest of Species B or was presented with environmental/dietary differences, over the ages Fish Species C may emerge from that population.

well first problem with crossbreeding is that the fish probably will be unfertil... and they could develope growth problems...

Not the case with some types of fish such as the mbuna species. They're generally fully fertile without health or genetic issues.