Do fish inherit traits like other animals?

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samilia

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Oct 26, 2005
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:help:

I've been thinging about starting up an aquarium for a few years now and I recently found out I have to do a science project for school by the end of grade twelve, two and a half years from now. I would really like to do it on genetics, and was thinking of using gerbils or some sort of plant. But, because plants are boring and gerbils require lots of time to tame and no one really wants twenty gerbils anyways, I thought of fish, instead.

Please don't freak out. (She's planning on expirementing on fish!! How cruel!!) That's not my intention at all. If I was planning on being cruel, I would use gerbils and be done with it.

Even though the deadline for the project is a long time away, I want to become proficient at caring for the particular fish for a while before I start. But I'm getting off-topic.

My question was, what is a easy fish to take care of that has common genetic traits? ex. Most of these fish have long tail fins but one quarter have short tail fins. It would be nice if it was a freshwater fish and didn't require a heater!

Thanks so much!

-Samilia :D
 
Of course fish pass on traits, they have DNA like all eukaryotes and are therefore capable of passing on genetic info. Getting any fish to breed is probably going to be harder than gerbils, and I'm no expert on freshwater, but I think guppies may be a good starting place if you insist on fish. They have highly distinguishable features, at least. (note: if it was me, i'd go with plants, since your results are practically guaranteed).

-dave-
 
Fancy guppies are easily bred and their tails can be used as identifiers of various strings.

Swordtail and platy mix can result in a mix with the males exibiting the tailspike of swordtails with some of the coloration of the platy, I've seen some interesting wag-tail swordtails as a result.

Both fish are tropical and a heater is recommended.
 
I agree that fancy guppies are easy to bred and easy to identify with color traits. It takes about a month for them to give birth between birthings. You can get one male and a couple of females, that way you have one color male and you can see what the fry will look like. You can determin the male to female ratio, who takes on the original males colors and who takes on the females colors. The guppies take about 6 monts to grow to adult status.
 
Thanks! I'll do some research on these types. I'm still not sure if I'll use fish, but you've given a great place to start.

-Samilia
 
Fruit Flies (Drosophila melanogaster) would be an excellent subject for the kind of project that you're looking into. They have a relatively small number of genes, and it's very easy to distiguish the "classic" phenotypic ratios (ie: 9:3:3:1) from allele dominance. The generations are also much, much shorter than fishes or mammals.
 
i have two blue swirl guppies and one "cobra", very different colors, the cobra female is now pregnant, if its by a blue swirl then i could have a very interesting pattern/color either way the genes sway, id say go get lots of fancy guppies and just wait, read up on breeding them in here, thou usually theyll do it anywhere anyhow anyways no matter. Best of luck.
 
if you want to use guppies, you'll need at least three tanks. the first tank will be for your first pair or trio (one male and two females is recommended so that the male doesn't harass one female to death. often when buying fancy guppies they are sold as trios, all the same type and color. you'll also have to make sure that the females are "virgin" females. if they breed even once, they can have several batches of fry from the one mating, and so the fry you get may not be from the male you have. a good breeder will separate them though and it shouldn't be a problem. the other tanks will be for the fry - as soon as they can be distinguished from each other sexually, the males and females should be separated. that way you have more control over the reproduction of the fish. you may need even more for each color you are using in the beginning, or you could set up a larger tank, maybe 29g, and use dividers between the breeders.
it would be really hard to use the regular feeder guppies simply because it's difficult to follow the color traits. when i kept them, all the females had either clear tails or blue ones like the moms, but the males were totally varied. i gave a bunch of them to my boyfriend, and the one red-tailed male with a bunch of blue tailed females had fry with red, blue, yellow, orange, black, and purple tails.
 
Thanks guys. I did some reading and I think it's going to be guppies fo sure. After school today, I'm going to go look at tanks.

I'm very excited now!

-Samilia
 
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