Red Texas breeding.

krisH42o

Gambusia
MFK Member
Dec 10, 2013
21
7
18
Louisville
Hi fellow aquarium enthusiasts. This is my first post although I signed up on this site several years ago.
I'm working on a Red Texas project and wonder if anyone here has had any luck getting nice pearl faders from their batches.
At this point I have a male unfaded Red Texas that I bred from a nice wc Green Texas (Carpinte) and and female blood parrot. I have him paired with another blood parrot.
I have talked with a Thai breeder about my progress but he isn't going to give up his secrets so easily.
I didn't save his mom which in hindsight I should have bred him back to.
The Blood Parrot he is in with now has laid eggs three times but he is still not ready.
If this male doesn't fade is he still worth using to acquire fading pearl offspring?
The breeder I talked to did mention Red Mammon. Any advice will be much appreciated. Thanks for reading! 20170306_105834.jpg
 
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Fish on Fire

Polypterus
MFK Member
Jul 7, 2007
2,669
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Nice starter. First you gotta figure out if he's fertile or not. You might be better off breeding your original male to one of the female offspring and then taking a male from that pairing and crossing that with a female from your first generation.

He likely mentioned red mammon because those tend to create better looking offspring (in terms of head size, finnage, body shape, and coloration) with a higher chance of fertile babies, than a texas x red parrot cross would.
 

krisH42o

Gambusia
MFK Member
Dec 10, 2013
21
7
18
Louisville
Nice starter. First you gotta figure out if he's fertile or not. You might be better off breeding your original male to one of the female offspring and then taking a male from that pairing and crossing that with a female from your first generation.

He likely mentioned red mammon because those tend to create better looking offspring (in terms of head size, finnage, body shape, and coloration) with a higher chance of fertile babies, than a texas x red parrot cross would.
I'm still waiting to see whether he is fertile or not. Parent fish and siblings are gone so it's up to him. I wonder if pairing siblings from his possible fry at this point would help or if back to parent would be better.
 

Fish on Fire

Polypterus
MFK Member
Jul 7, 2007
2,669
177
96
Visalia/Berkeley, California
I'm still waiting to see whether he is fertile or not. Parent fish and siblings are gone so it's up to him. I wonder if pairing siblings from his possible fry at this point would help or if back to parent would be better.
Yeah, it's the reason why I temporarily gave up on my attempt at red texas, I would need way too much tank space because you have to grow out the fry so that you can figure out whether or not any of them are fertile and figure it out from there. Easy for the people in Thailand to do it because they can just toss entire batches of fish into outdoor ponds and kind of forget about them for a while.

I'd let your guy grow a bit and test his fertility on blood parrot females (because parrots can't really cause too much damage to your key fish). Once you figure that out, which may take a while depending on how big/old he is now, you could either look into acquiring a confirmed fertile female RT, or a higher quality female red fish like a red mammon/srs, etc, that you can attempt to breed him with in order to get a higher quality strain going.

If you can, I would try to get that male texas that you used back, or get another one, because you'll likely need to cross some fresh texas blood back in at some point in order to get more pearls back into the line.

It'll take at least 3 years to get real progress, IMO.
 

krisH42o

Gambusia
MFK Member
Dec 10, 2013
21
7
18
Louisville
Yeah, it's the reason why I temporarily gave up on my attempt at red texas, I would need way too much tank space because you have to grow out the fry so that you can figure out whether or not any of them are fertile and figure it out from there. Easy for the people in Thailand to do it because they can just toss entire batches of fish into outdoor ponds and kind of forget about them for a while.

I'd let your guy grow a bit and test his fertility on blood parrot females (because parrots can't really cause too much damage to your key fish). Once you figure that out, which may take a while depending on how big/old he is now, you could either look into acquiring a confirmed fertile female RT, or a higher quality female red fish like a red mammon/srs, etc, that you can attempt to breed him with in order to get a higher quality strain going.

If you can, I would try to get that male texas that you used back, or get another one, because you'll likely need to cross some fresh texas blood back in at some point in order to get more pearls back into the line.

It'll take at least 3 years to get real progress, IMO.
 

krisH42o

Gambusia
MFK Member
Dec 10, 2013
21
7
18
Louisville
Yeah, it's the reason why I temporarily gave up on my attempt at red texas, I would need way too much tank space because you have to grow out the fry so that you can figure out whether or not any of them are fertile and figure it out from there. Easy for the people in Thailand to do it because they can just toss entire batches of fish into outdoor ponds and kind of forget about them for a while.

I'd let your guy grow a bit and test his fertility on blood parrot females (because parrots can't really cause too much damage to your key fish). Once you figure that out, which may take a while depending on how big/old he is now, you could either look into acquiring a confirmed fertile female RT, or a higher quality female red fish like a red mammon/srs, etc, that you can attempt to breed him with in order to get a higher quality strain going.

If you can, I would try to get that male texas that you used back, or get another one, because you'll likely need to cross some fresh texas blood back in at some point in order to get more pearls back into the line.

It'll take at least 3 years to get real progress, IMO.
Yes the fish I'm looking to breed can take several years of work to produce. Most of the time show males arent fertile. I don't have as much tank space as I did because I've just paired out a couple blue marble angelfish. I'm at the point where whoever produces fry gets the house but I've spent a lot of time and electricity on this Texas project. Haha, it's a hard decision.
 

Fish on Fire

Polypterus
MFK Member
Jul 7, 2007
2,669
177
96
Visalia/Berkeley, California
Yes the fish I'm looking to breed can take several years of work to produce. Most of the time show males arent fertile. I don't have as much tank space as I did because I've just paired out a couple blue marble angelfish. I'm at the point where whoever produces fry gets the house but I've spent a lot of time and electricity on this Texas project. Haha, it's a hard decision.
Pretty cool man.

Yeah, I decided to stop because I kind of calculated everything and figured out that what I would spend in time, money, and effort to create my own "masterpiece", it would be a lot cheaper to just drop the $200-300 on a fish from Thailand, lol.

I will do it eventually though, breed my own when I'm older and retired. Move to Florida so I can do it cheaper, haha.

Wish you all the luck with your project though man and look forward to seeing updates. See if you can get your hands on some KKP or Mammon. (KKP are basically higher quality blood parrots and Mammon are at the top of the scale in what you want to use to create your red texas masterpiece. BPs are basically the bare minimum of what you want to work with.)
 

krisH42o

Gambusia
MFK Member
Dec 10, 2013
21
7
18
Louisville
Pretty cool man.

Yeah, I decided to stop because I kind of calculated everything and figured out that what I would spend in time, money, and effort to create my own "masterpiece", it would be a lot cheaper to just drop the $200-300 on a fish from Thailand, lol.

I will do it eventually though, breed my own when I'm older and retired. Move to Florida so I can do it cheaper, haha.

Wish you all the luck with your project though man and look forward to seeing updates. See if you can get your hands on some KKP or Mammon. (KKP are basically higher quality blood parrots and Mammon are at the top of the scale in what you want to use to create your red texas masterpiece. BPs are basically the bare minimum of what you want to work with.)
I also thought about ordering from him but I have heard alot of bad things about trans-shipping and wrong fish being sent, not to mention shipping time and cost. I think I was quoted $103-$113 in total cost from Thailand to me in louisville for a 3 to 5 inch fish, 5 inches and up another $20. So I'm trying my luck!
If he ends up fertile I will definitely look for a female Mammon.
I will update pictures, Thanks.
 
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