'Man-made fish' your view?

R

Roland

worlds last gunslinger
Jan 15, 2003
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I am hoping I can have your opinions on the delicate subject of 'manufactured' fish ie the blood parrot cichlid and more recently the flowerhorn cichlid.

For those of you who dont know, both these fish are hybrids, a cross between fish of differing species.

The blood parrot cichlid is an odd looking fish, with various problems with areas such as the mouth and the swimbladder. it also has trouble breeding, but apparently successes are becoming more frequent.

The flowerhorn is less 'unusual' looking, and breeding this fish is reported to be relitlavley easy, with the offspring fertile, which raises its own questions....

What are your views on this? I have my own views but would like to hear what others think first.

thanks for your time!

Also, the reason I have posted this on Gen freshwater is because I feel this has more to do with ethics than of the fish being cichlids...
 
i honestly dont care about the genetics of the situation. i dont like the fact that they dye the blood parrots ( they are very much beautiful enough as it is) it is a cruel way to go and i dont see how it cant affect the fish in a bad way.

i have one blood parrot at the moment in a 55 gallon community tank. he gets on great with everything and has the most personality in the whole tank. he does have problems getting food floating on the surface because of the odd shape of his mouth but is fine when the food is sinking. Since most of the neons get the sinking food ive taken to hand feeding him.

some people may say it is unatural to breed these fish with diffrent species and make new ones, but isnt that evolution? so long as the new species dont endanger the old ones. such as pushing the old ones out of their natural habitat i see nothing wrong with the practice.
 
Just to prevent some silliness...Contrived creatures are not part of evolution. Evolution is the adaptation of a SPECIES to survive a changing environment. It is NOT hybridized, crippled creatures made for purely economic reasons. Parrots wouldn't survive in any native waters--they would be eaten or starve.

Best response I can give as to their existance is : Not in my tank. I don't even like colored gravels and fake plants.
 
i didnt mean that evolution and the selective breeding are that closely related, just that they share some similar properties. ie combining two fish to create a new one with diffrent attributes.

The blood parrots probably would not do to well in the wild, i think, because of the trouble they have with feeding that i have seen in them.

im thinking hard how to talk about this with out sparking a h00ge arguement. oriongirl seems very passionate on the subject.:eek:

bah i cant hmm :/ i just look on them as an intresting new fish, not as something fake....oh well hehe
 
I find BP's to be rather interesting fish. Wether it was right or wrong for them to be created, I'm in the middle on that. I don't think hybrids, fish or otherwise, are for all people. I suppose you must look at the quality of life the fish will have, its form, needs. Then be selective as to which individuals continue the "new specie". Heck someone already played god, as some would say, why not try to improve it.
One of my 55g's has 4 of them living peacefully and growing nicely. 2 of them can close their mouths, the other 2 can not. None of them have the dramatically indented area just posterior to the head. They haven't had any problems with their swim bladders. Also none of them had been painted. That is an issue I definately do not agree with.
My first pair did reproduce with live fry as the result. That was several years ago. I'm still trying to find another pair that will reproduce as well. While looking I came to realize that good specimens are difficult to find.
I know nothing about the Flowerhorn other than having seen a picture. It's not a fish that appeals to me.
 
Bad news all around. I take care of them well at work, mostly cause I feel sorry for them, but I would never let one near my tanks.
 
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Not trying to start a fight--just said I don't want them in my tank. I'm not particularly passionate one way or another about hybrids and such. I am passionate about the misuse of technical terminology, since it is misleading in so many ways.

Selective breeding has nothing in common with evolution. Evolution ends up with a critter that it better able to survive it's habitat. Selective breeding has cull in pretty much every batch. There's no way to compare 'methods'--evolution doesn't try to make the genetic freaks survive and spread. The driving force between evolution and selective breeding is totally different.

Not to mention, selective breeding refers to specifically breeding a critter to encourage or enhance a specific native characteristic, such as flowing fins, or a specific color. Hybridizing fish is not really the same thing as selective breeding.
 
I agree 100% with every point made by Oriongirl. The only fish worth keeping in my opinion are those that are essentially indistinguishable from a wild fish. Some of those Frankenfish give me the creeps. The most ordinary wild guppy has a beauty that exceeds any veiltailed unnaturally colored malformed genetic mutation.

I agree about the colored gravel too. It's all a matter of taste, I suppose, but for me the magic of any aquarium is in the replication of some part of the natural world.
 
really

my lfs has TONS of blood parrots and i like them
 
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