I hate killing babies :(

Originally posted by RyJ


*sigh*
Ok... I'll try to lay this out again...
In MY situation, I had two fish that WOULD NOT have cross bred in the wild. Due to ME placing them in an artifical (tanks are human made) setting, they cross bred. So...I am responsible. Yes, they were just adapting since the urge to reproduce is quite strong, and neither of them could find suitable mates for a really long time. We already know this. I've had my Dempsy and Convict together for over a year and this is the first time they have spawned.

'Life Threatening'? We are talking about the preservation of species. If my Dempsy and Convict weren't in my tank then would never have cross-bred.

Lol, you just proved my point. What is the "wild" are we not in the wild? The fish in a man-made aquarium are still in the "wild", just like birds that create nests on man-made building and adapt to what we have. You say they would not have cross bred in the wild but they did in your aquarium, so your basically proving yourself wrong. Truth is all animals have had to adapt to us, and in the aquaruim one way of keeping offspring alive to carry on to the next generation is by cross breeding. Plus if the fish don't find anything wrong with it, why should we????
 
Originally posted by Juthunter28
....its just plain retarded to say that fish are pure breds .......not every fish in the wild in pure.....its impossible to spawn pure blooded fish....because using Punnet Squares.....some of the fish from a spawn would be corrupt and die...some would be different the others based on variation and genetic recombination during meiosis....its just the way of life....that all fish are different and contain different dna make ups then others.....i dont think any fish are pure anymore.....

See...now we agree on something. I think b]that[/b] satement is retarded. NO fish are PURE? Really. How zen.
 
Originally posted by Dr_Woo


The fish in a man-made aquarium are still in the "wild", just like birds that create nests on man-made building and adapt to what we have.

Poor comparison.

The birds are still outdoors, free to do what they like, and it was their choice to build a nest on a man-made building. Fish we keep in our aquarium are entirely dependent on us to provide them with everything. Water, food, mates, etc.

Do you also advocate the introduction of non native fish and plants to new enviroments? It is all the "wild" after all. And animals all have to adapt because of what we do.

One way to keep species alive is to allow them to cross breed in your tank? Um, I dont follow your logic. You arent keeping that species alive, your getting rid of that species by crossbreeding it.
 
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Juthunter28: As a bio major I can ask you: what the are you talking about? That was gibberish; I understand the words, but not how you put them together.

There is a difference between genetic variation inside a species and then genetic variation between species. No matter what, individuals inside a species are genetically more similar to each other than anything else, even considering the SLIM chance of mutation during meiosis (more accurately it would probably be during DNA replication and translation, in errors in one of those mechanisms). That's why they are species; that's how taxonmy works. Individual B. splendens all have different genes. But they're all splenden genes (one would hope - again I've read [single source] that domestic bettas are mongrels, which is quite discouraging and why fish keepers don't like hybrids).

You said every species individual is unique or something such (to say that everything is a hybrid). I think hybrids can cause problems because you don't have a defined species; the parental DNA can do different things in different individuals. In the wild, on the off chance a small number of hybrids occur, the enviornment will kill them all off or, at best, start causing the genetically similar/superior individuals to survive and breed. This doesn't happen in the aquarium, so its impossible to keep these fish categorize uniform species.

Hybrids aren't a new species. They usually don't breed true, thus, not a species. Rarely, (especially with complex organisms, more often with plants) hybrids can occur, begin to breed with each other and establish a species, where the enviornment generally forces genetic similarity (read, similarity, not uniformity). But that's not the normal course of things. It doesn't happen so often that you can say every species is a hybrid. Almost always given the chance animals will breed with their own species. Rarely does hybridization occur (especially in higher organisms - plants can wind or bug pollinate), and when it does, rarely does it occur so much that a population can become established.

I've never had a punnett square where an organism was "corrupt" and died. I've done a few with genetic disorders, but nothing about corruption and dying...perhaps you can enlighten me before I have to take the class?

The problem with fish like that is even after generations it's not a purebreed for whatever species it resembles (if it is even viable and resembles one of the parent species). It can still hide genes that will go on to its descendants. That dillutes the purebreed species gene pool. Not good.
 
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