petition against the Flowerhorn

Originally posted by TTman
what state/city u in? I've been keeping an eye on their prices, so I would like to know. lols, most people would NOT spend the $$$ for a FH (unless they are as cheap as u claim), at least not the average aquarist. forgive me if u are LOADED. little timmy's dad sure isn't gonna dump $10+ into a fish when a feeder goldfish is 10 cents.

The place I bought the flower horn (which wasn't labled, and I assumed it was a trimac until I called back the next day and talked to the owner) was in Somerset Ky. And I have heard of them being this cheap all over the US and Canada. I never said I was LOADED. And no little Timmy's dad might not buy the $10 flower horn, but if you think that people don't ruitinely spend $10, $20, $40, $80, and even $150 on a fish they want, well your wrong. And you don't have to be LOADED, you just have to want the fish and be willing to spend the money. I don't know, I must be nuts to have bought my Striped Midas, when I could have got that awsome feeder goldfish for such a good price, LOL.

if you believe in dat good luck BS, then more power to you. a wild midas looks grey/white w/black striping. a wild trimac looks green/grey w/a red breast. I hardly call that colorful. beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder ;-)

I never once said I believed in flower horns being good luck. Your putting words in my mouth. All I said was that the reason they sold for so much is because the people that bought them think they are lucky. That is true and you know it. And BTW, I do think a Striped Midas is much nicer looking than a flower horn. But you must be forgetting about the Gold, Red, Orange and White colors that are also found in the wild. How do you think they got the name "Midas" and "Citrinellus"? And wild Trimacs are very often Bright Lime Green, with a Cherry Red Chest, and with large black blotches trimmed in white down its sides.
 
You can create your own designer Flowerhorn by crossing Trimac with any CA. If you want more red, cross with Blood Parrot or Red Devel. If you want spots, cross with Cuban cichlid or Dampsey. If you pattern, cross with Jaquar. All CAs are decendents from a single Cichlasoma line and will readily cross breed. All you need is a big tank and an egg grid divider to prevent the potential mates from killing one another, and additonal tanks to raise the fry. Prepare to cull 90 % because only a small percentage of the fry will grow into show specimen.

There is nothing unethical about creating hybrid. All live bearers in the trade are hybrid of some form and all show discus are hybrid of 2 to 3 species discus in the wild. The crop, fruit and vegetable we eat are mostly hybrid to improve desease resistant and vigor. The beef we eat come from domesticated hybrid cow and many farm raise food fish are hybrid species. Many ornamental plants we grow are hybrid to improve show quality. Rose growers are proud to show off their newest hybrid tea roses. Even the people of the only Superpower are hybrid of mulitple races and ethnic group.
 
Originally posted by jiggerpolebill
i dont think it is a hybrid. can you prove me wrong?
i dont think it is the result of a trimac and 2 other cichlids either.

The rest of the post aside ( :rolleyes: ) this is exactly the point I was making, and I feel it is valid. The creators aren't sharing much, so who knows? Say it's a hybrid to boost sales?
Hey, you might not like it, but look, we (and many other people across the 'net) have given them a TON of free press here! People read this post, wonder what the fracas is about, then check the fish out for themselves. There's nothing really wrong with the fish, so you've just generated alot of intrest there...


one thing for certain is that it is a hybrid cross, and not a variation or mutation. it is bred out in the far east fish farms, as was the parrot cichlid. authorities cover up the origins of these hybrids to stop more being bred from them.

The authorities? what, like the government? I don't think they care.

the less people that know the origins, the more money can be made from those that do....so that sort of info doesnt get out easily.

But, like you said they can be bred easily, so what's the point?
Might be that they are keeping it as an "trade secret", planning to use a similar 'recepie' to make other, but different looking, hybrids in the future. By keeping the crosses a secret, they prevent someone else getting the jump on the next hybrid craze...
OR, (and I'm not saying I think this IS the case, but it is a definate possibility) the FH IS just a different color strain, not hybridized at all (or the result of a natural hybrid then caught by a collector) and they just say "hybrid" to gain attention...

How much would a gene test cost?
If all the CA's are descended from a common ancestor, how readily could different species be told apart anyways?
 
if they did call it a hybrid for commercial reasons, then their plans backfired. in a recent poll, 80% of british fishkeepers claimed they felt hybrid cichlids to be a threat to the hobby. 9% claimed that they didnt like them but didnt see them as a major threat, and 11% said that they didnt have a problem with hybrids. that is an overwelming statistic against them....but at the end of the day it is down to personal opinion. to keep them or not...its your tank, your hobby, your money and your decision at the end of the day.
 
blueyes...you would not only have to do a gene test on the flowerhorn, but every cichlid until you found a match. even then you wouldnt find a perfect match, as every fishes genes are different (except for cloned fish maybe...but i wont go into that).
 
except, that survay is among fishkeepers. I wonder what the general populous feels? and on different continents?

Also, you wouldn't have to find a perfect match. Different species have certain markers that can distinguish sample A as a human sample, and sample B as a Chimp... You would still have to do a few dozen tests at the least.
 
I bet that if you go to Asia and do a survey, you will get majority approval of hybrid cichlid. Flowerhorn, Blood Parrot and Red Oscar were Asian invention nd are highly priced there. The biggest spenders on fish are Asians. Look at those $10,000+ Koi, Flowerhorn and Red Aisan Arowana.

ACA is against cichlid hybrid and yet approves the many varieties of show discus which are product of decades old hybridization and line breeding.
 
discus VARIATIONS (they r not hybrids in the true sence of the word) are a cross between different discus varities, as is the variatus platy, and is not a cross between 2 or more completely different spieces of fish. the difference is that the discus can naturally inter-breed, whereas the hybrids that are created from man crossing many different species of cichlids is a completely unnatural processing involving the use of hormones.
 
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