Bent Endler spines.. genetic?

vampie

vampie

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Oct 25, 2006
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I don't really bother looking into my Endler tank much, but I noticed today quite a few males in my little colony have bent spines to various degrees. It seems only limited to the male Endlers, the only other fish in the tank (Boraras) all seem normal. Water parameters checked out okay (0-0-5).

Bad photos ahead.

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Could this just be the effects of inbreeding? I'm still in my first generation, and the effected fish were normal when they were younger, but I'm not really sure how the person I got them from had kept them. Or, could I be dealing with something else entirely?
 
Hm.. anyone else have an opinion on it? Not really sure what my course of action should be here yet.
 
Could be gentically deformed or due to water conditions. I see you have Underwater Garden.

Are you injecting CO2?
What is normal/stable pH?

From my experiences with endlers from early 90's to 2005, in 90, 37, 45, 20, 10 G , etc(Thousands ) Dutch Aq dedicated to Endlers and dwarf/pygmy cories, did experienced this sort of mishap more so due to water condition than recessive genes. Even recessive genes couldve been triggered by stress factor which is its water condition.

Too late to med anyway, IMO.
 
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Underwater garden? No CO2 injection, pH is 7.2 to 7.4 give or take.

I want to rule out an infection since the Boraras are healthy, but it just doesn't seem like it would make sense for this many Endlers (4 out of ~15) to have bent spines if it's inbreeding, and for them to develop the bent spine when they were normal while young.
 
Underwater garden=successul Dutch (planted) Aquarium. A Compliment!

If no CO2 injection and pH stable just above neutral and fish were not sujected to prolonged exposure to acidic water (below 6.6), I am thinking recessive genes triggered by its inherited traits but can never rule out othre outside factors (stress??).

Are these obtained as adult or were they born in your tank? 4 out of 15 seems bit high as I very rarely saw adolescent/adult developing such condition when ideal conditions were provided.

How long did you have them before noticing chnages? Types of foods?

How often do you test pH and do you test before routine water changes? pH of tap?
 
Ah. The photo isn't of the actual tank, just a smaller one I relocated the deformed Endlers to.

Some of the Endlers are adults, others are fry that were born in my tank closing in on adulthood. The adults were normal when I got them as far as I remember. I obtained them late last year.. December probably. They're fed three different types of flake food as a staple, occasionally given frozen brine shrimp and bloodworms. I test about twice a month on this tank, unscheduled. pH is about 7.0 out of tap, 6.6 when settled.
 
So these EL were never exposed to low pH for long time?? Hmm!

btw, my many many generations of EL were never at that coloration nor patterns.

If memory serves, offsprings and offsrings of offsprings were pretty much identical in appearances (colors/paterns) as their parents..

Your pics reminded me of other closely related Livebearers which developed same/similar mishaps when exposed to low pH water for extended time.

I dont think there is much you can do to reverse the deformity at this point.

I guess we will eventually learn more from offsprings of what appeared to be normal. In order to reduce the % of deformity, it may be wise to isolate deformed ones from health ones.

Keep us posted with further developments as I am very curious as well.

If pH of tap is 6.6, what do you do to keep pH of tank water above 7.0?

I am pretty sure pH may swing down after water changes. Of course, Degreee of swing dependent of amt of water changed.
 
These aren't one of the wild strains, but a popular aquarium strain known as "Tiger Endlers". I doubt the deformity can be reversed as well, my intent was to find out what the cause is so that I can prevent the rest of the colony to be effected.

The tank's pH is higher because I mixed crushed coral in with the substrate. pH should not swing much, the water changes on this tank is only about 10%, twice a week.
 
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