Eureka Reds - Hybrids?

[Honda12]

Eureka reds are not a naturally occuring fish in lake malawi. They are line bred from the Aulonocara jacobfreibergi (Otter Pt.)

All they did was enhance the red in the fish by breeding all mostly red fish together. They stayed away from the more yellow and orange fish to try and keep the red color.

So after all the line breeding, they ended up with the (man made) eureka red.

As far as the albino you wan't to enter, it would technically be a hybrid. Most albinos are typically engineered with the genes of other albino cichlids to introduce the albino phenotype into the fish. Also you don't always know what fish they used to introduce the gene.

 

[jhutch]

OK, this may be a rant, but didn't all the Yellow labs in the hobby for a long time come from one wild caught pair??

I am working with Vics, which are rare. Sometimes the only thing that can be done is to line breed...no other possible mates. I'd like to diversify my bloodlines, but in some cases that may not be possible. When discussing this with people a lot more experienced than I, I was told that it wasn't that big of a deal, and that a lot of the endangered species came from one wild caught pair. The Kyoga Flamebacks were the example given to me, as a fish that every one in the US are related.

I'd like to know how the ACA Cares program plans to deal with this issue.

Interesting....Good point and true in many cases with the Victorians. Just like the Zebra Obliquidens. I saw a guy on aquabid selling "F2". This is impossible. The last known Zebra Obliquidens from the wild were owned by a wealthy German I believe or European anyway and all the lines in the hobby now are for the most part hybrids. There is very little purity left to that particular fish.

 

[jhutch]

As far as the albino you wan't to enter, it would technically be a hybrid. Most albinos are typically engineered with the genes of other albino cichlids to introduce the albino phenotype into the fish. Also you don't always know what fish they used to introduce the gene.

I disagree. You can get albinos from species specific by breeding fry back to the parents and brother to sister. I have albino afra cobue and they are not hybrids. That is a pretty inaccurate statement.

 

[rallysman]

I'm still confused. I understand that they want to keep the fish in the show close to what is found in the wild, but it can't be a hybrid unless it's a mix from 2 separate species, no?

 

[jhutch]

I'm still confused. I understand that they want to keep the fish in the show close to what is found in the wild, but it can't be a hybrid unless it's a mix from 2 separate species, no?

That is right. They are thinking about eliminating line bred fish because like hybrids they are not found in the wild.

 

[rallysman]

so line breeding is totally different than hybridization gotcha

 

[Honda12]

I disagree. You can get albinos from species specific by breeding fry back to the parents and brother to sister. I have albino afra cobue and they are not hybrids. That is a pretty inaccurate statement.

I didn't say all albinos were hybrids. Your albino C. afra (cobue) would just be naturally occuring cause one of your breeders have the gene to pass on to the fry.

In the case of the eurekas, they are man made/ line bred. Then you have the albino eurekas. I'm sure there were some albinos the occured like your afra did, and of course they started to come out for sale.

When the albino eurekas came out there wern't that many and they were at a high price. Then as time goes on you start to get more and more flooding the market.

So either someone bought up all the albinos and bred them to fill the demand for them or someone was messing around with genetics to get the large supply of them you see now.

 

[jhutch]

I see. Thanks for the info. Don't know much about the AERs personally. Just know my male is very nice. Don't care much for hybrids but they make great feeder fish.

This is an interesting topic.

 

[Honda12]

I see. Thanks for the info. Don't know much about the AERs personally. Just know my male is very nice. Don't care much for hybrids but they make great feeder fish.

This is an interesting topic.

I don't personally know the exact history of the albino eurekas either. This is just from what I read and noticed. They exploded on the market the exact same way the albino taiwan reefs did.

But it will still be interesting to find out what the ACA says about line bred and hybrid fish being band. Cause if that is the case, the ACA should have alot of angry discus breeders out there, because 90% of all discus you see nowadays are all line bred/ man made for color. So those fish shouldn't be allowed to be entered either.

 

[jhutch]

I agree. There are very few Discus that are around that are the original wild fish. Big controversey about the Discus in the ACA when that was mentioned. One guy said I should enter it in the contest under its scientific name and one guy said a few judges told him they don't even look at the line bred fish. It's definately a confrontational topic within the ACA.