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 manacondasOh, it's still on the CA/SA section too! Thought it was moved for some reason? Am I not seeing it right?
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.
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!
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.
4.3. Three species vs. multi-species concept with notes on diversityWhile 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).