Sa/Ca cichlid Crosses video

CAaddict

Feeder Fish
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Jul 27, 2010
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i personally like hybrids. im kinda new to the hobby (keeping cichlids anyways) theres so many differant wild cichlids out there. but there are so many more to see thru hybridisation. a flower horn is gorgus.if i never saw this vid then possibly alot of us wudnt see sum of the cool hybrids. fair enuff if a fish cant close its mouth and has an unsightly forhead.. lol it may/WILL NOT survive in the wild. but us as fishkeepers are giving them a chance of a life.
 

Akabir47

Gambusia
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May 1, 2009
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Home of the brave.
the jag x syn is my fav! WHat a stunner!!!
 

BayArea_510

Feeder Fish
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Feb 28, 2011
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Oh, it's still on the CA/SA section too! Thought it was moved for some reason? Am I not seeing it right?
i thought it wwould get moved to but they moved it to sa/ca media section intstead, and i understand you i rather have a pure of hybrid but the fact that to different fish breeding interst me because its interesting to see what the babies would like like, but i wouldnt sell hyrids as pures to the public, also for the record the only hybrid i would breed is manacondas
 

RD.

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The people doing this are a big part of what gives hybrid hobbyists a bad name, and you hybrid guys should be the ones calling people out on it and educating (which I believe you already do) in order to change the entrenched dogma that exists against you. I for one don't think any of you are out there to negatively affect the pure strains of cichlids in any way, but maybe you can understand some of the frustrations people have with it.

You hybrid guys? Are you kidding me?

I'm now referred to as a hybrid guy, because out of the hundreds of pure specimens that I've kept & bred over the years, I currently have a couple of non breeding single male hybrid specimens in a couple of my display tanks? Am I still allowed to post in the CA/SA section? :grinno:

I've been promoting sound husbandry & the ethical trade in tropical fish for long enough to understand that the term "pure", "wild caught", or F1 equates to nothing more than a bucket of warm spit unless those fishes provenance can be traced back to the original wild source, including the geographical location of where those fish were collected. And even then, the term "pure" can sometimes become open to interpretation.

The Midas complex is a classic example of why the geographical location of where the original wild fish were collected can later become so important. When one goes back to the original A. citrinellus, and A. labiatus that were collected & imported in the late 60's early 70's you will find thatthere was much confusion as to what was pure, even by those such as George Barlow who were collecting & studying this genus in the wild. This topic is mentioned in the following article by Paul Loiselle (originally published in 1980)

http://www.cichlidae.com/article.php?id=106

....... where he states;

Second, the small numbers of fish initially imported, the confusion over the number of species involved and the great eagerness to spawn them led initially to a great deal of indiscriminate hybridization. While all these cichlids display strong preferences for conspecific mates, they will hybridize in a no-choice situation (Bayliss, 1976). There is even some evidence that introgressive hybridization between A. labiatus and A. citrinellus may have occurred in the past in some of the smaller crater lakes (Barlow, 1976). The progeny of such shotgun marriages are as viable and fertile as the parental species. Thus the first few tank-reared generations were pretty much of a genetic omelette. With the passage of time, these fish have converged phenotypically on A. labiatus. Subsequent commercial importations have consisted exclusively of large-lipped, bright red animals. These obvious A. labiatus have been pond-bred in Florida for nearly ten years, and their offspring have dominated the market during this interval. The original hybrids have been effectively swamped through crossing with such pure A. labiatus.

Today, most tank-reared Red Devils are phenotypically recognizable A. labiatus, though one still encounters the odd individual whose deeper body and blunter snout proclaim the presence of a Midas Cichlid in the rock pile in the recent past!



A long but very interesting read from a paper released just last year that clearly describes how confusing the entire Midas complex is, much more so than George Barlow initially thought, or even Paul Loiselle when he wrote the above linked to article 30 years ago.


Not a simple case – A first comprehensive phylogenetic hypothesis for the Midas cichlid complex in Nicaragua (Teleostei: Cichlidae:​
Amphilophus)

Matthias F. Geiger​
a,*, Jeffrey K. McCrary b, Ulrich K. Schliewen a

a​
Bavarian State Collection of Zoology (ZSM), Department of Ichthyology, Münchhausenstr. 21, 81247 Munich, Germany b Fundación Nicaragüense Pro-desarrollo Comunitario Integral (FUNDECI/GAIA), Estación Biológica, Laguna de Apoyo Nature Reserve, Nicaragua



4.3. Three species vs. multi-species concept with notes on diversity
While previous and also some recent authors distinguished between
a number of species based on morphological characters (e.g.
Elmer et al., 2010b; Meek, 1907; McKaye et al., 2002; Stauffer et al.,
2008
), other authors assign numerous forms to only three species,
namely
A. citrinellus, A. zaliosus and A. labiatus (Wilson et al., 2000;
Barluenga et al., 2004, 2006a; Bunje et al., 2007
). The ongoing dispute
about
Amphilophus taxonomy (e.g. Villa, 1976b; Stauffer et al.,
2002
) is certainly based on the aforementioned high phenotypic
diversity within the Midas cichlid complex which sometimes hampers
ready identification in the field. To consider this issue adequately
especially when testing for alternative speciation
scenarios it is necessary to stick to a conservative taxonomy and
only assign taxonomically valid species names to unambiguously
identifiable individuals and not to each phenotype that is similar
due to only one character, i.e. ‘‘elongate body form” or ‘‘thick lips”.
According to the most recent taxonomy, the Midas cichlid complex
contains nine described species at the moment, but several more
are awaiting their proper systematic treatment (
McKaye et al.,
2002
, Geiger et al., in preparation).

In the case of Midevils, clearly the origins of of this fish had nothing to do with breeders or vendors being unscrupulous, and more to do with a genus that had yet to be fully understood or properly classified before commercial breeders began pumping them out by the millions. That bell can't be unrung, so one can either choose to keep & enjoy some of these "unpure" fish for their beauty, and their personality/behaviour, or not.


BTW - I agree that this topic was posted in the wrong section.
 

HrHagel

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Sep 7, 2009
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I don't see why a lot of people get so butthurt over a thread ending up in the wrong sub-forum.

I'm not really interested in hybrids, but that doesn't mean i didn't find the video interesting. I'm actually glad it was posted here, i enjoyed it, and wouldn't have seen it if posted in the hybrid section.

Sure, i can understand that if everyone were to just post whatever they wanted in whatever sub-forum they wanted that everything would become a big mess in here. But really, cmon, take a chill pill.

These hybrids can easely and have often occured in our own "pure-breed" tanks, and i am pretty sure most of us have wondered once or twice what this and that fish would look like if they bred.
Well, here's your answer.
 

aclockworkorange

Polypterus
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Jun 24, 2010
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Oh good lord RD., by "you hybrid guys" I simply meant those members of the board that are hybrid enthusiasts. It seems like you're the one creating the conflict here when there really is none, and I'm just trying to elaborate on some of the feelings I've heard echoed many times by other hobbysists, including long time members of the ACA.

You can post studies all the day long, fact is I still can't confidently get a trimac locally that hasn't been mixed with something else. If you want to take that offensively as well and post more studies, go for it, but bottom line is those are some of the feelings people have and it's a response to you when you asked why people had some of those feelings--whether or not you agree with it is irrelevant in the sense that it doesn't make those feelings people have go away.
 

jiant2520

Fire Eel
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Jan 5, 2011
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BayArea_510,

Once again bro your posts get lots of feed back. Always lots of back and forth and good conversation, lol. For the record... I prefer "pure" fish, but do not totally mind hybrids. The Festae / Jaguar cross is def my fav and would like to own one some time. I've had a few flowerhorns (still have one) and think they look cool (some). I agree with a lot of people that I don't mind hybrids at all, however I hate when irresponsable fish owners cross breed their fish and sell them or give them to others / LFS's who sell them as "pure" or some kind of made up name. That just sucks. I came back from this fish store yesterday and they had a tank labeled "mixed south american cichlids". I have seen these for Africans, but never before did I see a tank like that for SA/CA. They all looked like they were mixed with JD or something like that, but with yellow on their tails.
 

RD.

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No need to bring religion into this, clockwork. ;)

In case you forgot, your response followed a direct quote by me, and included your response to my Midevil question, so when you stated " you hybrid guys", I couldn't help but believe that was directed at me as well. I'm not looking to create conflict at all, I actually got a good laugh out of your comment.

My comment about the Midas complex (which included a single study) was simply to prove a point as far as Midas/RD's crosses go, that being the resulting gene pool that one generally sees in this hobby outside of specialty breeders/importers was created from the very get go, and had nothing to do with unscrupulous breeders or vendors. So if long time hobbyists, or ACA members want to get their panties in a knot about the Midevil situation they should direct their angst at the appropriate parties. (if any of them are still alive?) That was simply an attempt on my part to explain the Midevil situation as I imagine that there are MFK members that are not aware of how this originally came about. (the commercial mixing of the two species)


Fair enough?
 
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