Article on Hybrid Fish

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dogofwar;4281057; said:
You got my vote, Mike ;)

I appreciate the article because it seeks to bring some rationality to the argument and focus on the importance of education and responsibility, no matter what fish you keep.

Fancy fish have been the foundation of the hobby, including the cichlid hobby, since its inception. I've never understood all of the emotion "against" fancy cichlids since people have been developing and keeping fancy cichlids (livebearers, goldfish, barbs, etc, etc, etc.) for years.

Seems to me that all of the energy that's spent being "against" fancy cichlids could be better spent on getting new people involved in the hobby - no matter what kind of fish that excite them...

Matt
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:cheers:
 
Thanks for all the feedback guys. Its funny, I got more comments about the article sort of bashing 'hybrid lovers' here in the CA/SA forum than I did in the Hybrid forum, lol. I thought there would be more 'purists' views here than anything, but maybe they are just avoiding this topic all together.


I seem to be getting a lot of requests for discussing the differences between two fish of different species, and two fish of different locations being hybrids, so I think I will add this to the definition.

hamfist;4271694; said:
Generally a really great article. THe only aspect I would personally like to see added is a short discussion on (in the words of Scatman) "the whole subjective process of defining a species should be addressed. where/how do you draw the line between species?"
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driftwood;4272095; said:
Its a good read but this issue will never be resloved in my opinion. After running for a BOT position for the ACA and loosing badly I've kind of stopped making any comments on the Hybrid threads so this is probably the first time in a while that I've even bothered to do so. My opinions about Hybrids remains the same. If you want to keep Hybrids do it responsibly. Otherwise, I have no problem with them. We're all quilty to a degree just for keeping this fish in out home aquariums.
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I tend to agree. That is why I decided not to really choose a side. I wanted both sides to be represented fairly and equally. Thanks for chiming in.
 
dogofwar;4281057; said:
I appreciate the article because it seeks to bring some rationality to the argument and focus on the importance of education and responsibility, no matter what fish you keep.

Matt
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I appreciate that you can see the big picture. I hope the read is enjoyable and that my point is easily taken. Thanks again for your help.

Matt
 
I'm suprised as well that there haven't been more "man made fish are abominations" posts...I guess it's for the better.

There are many holes in basing the ethics of right and wrong on whether a fish is technically a cross between two "species". First, species change all the time based on the work of icthyologists. A single species can be split into several species...and then back again. Same with genuses. Scientists progress in their professions by publishing....and these sort of re-organizations are how they publish.

Another issue has to deal with various populations or geographic varients of fish. Different populations of cichlids within a species can be quite different from each other. Think peacocks or mbuna or even "convicts". Some are different enough (or have received enough scientific scrutiny) to be considered different species. Others do not. Is it any more natural or un-natural to cross these than it is to cross two closely related species? Not in my mind. Is a cross between varients more or less different from natural than a koi angel or a EBJD?

To further confuse things, geographic names sometimes are used to denote undescribed species, other times to describe distinctive populations or varients of fish of a species, other times to describe actual collection points and other times to attach a marketing name. There was a long discussion on this board about a particular vendor selling multiple Texas Cichlid types (each with a different made up name) all from the same watershed and very close geographic proximity.... In the end, geographic names can denote different fish or populations or just made up names for different spots in the same pond...

Matt

xEchOx;4283526; said:
Thanks for all the feedback guys. Its funny, I got more comments about the article sort of bashing 'hybrid lovers' here in the CA/SA forum than I did in the Hybrid forum, lol. I thought there would be more 'purists' views here than anything, but maybe they are just avoiding this topic all together.


I seem to be getting a lot of requests for discussing the differences between two fish of different species, and two fish of different locations being hybrids, so I think I will add this to the definition.
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That is really one of the reasons I did not include this in the article. Not only is it confusing and hard to explain, but there really is no solution... what can we do about it? It's just going to be an ongoing problem especially with the taxonomy... I've got a pretty good idea on how to fit it in, but it's going to be difficult to explain without confusing a beginner.
 
And yes, it did. I don't really know why.
 
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