Thanks kindly Kareef. Hope you're having a quality morning. It's coming from a 5 Megapixel Sony DP10 P&S. VERY difficult to get good shots with my old Point & Shoot. Argh! Hoping for an Xmas present. Cannon D80 body w/ Nikor 60mm macro. We'll see.
BadOscar's fish (& photos) will eventually look as good if not better. Just about every single cichlid I breed came straight off Don's farm, collected first from the wild, and we know live animals always look better in person than on video or in a still. My point is, chances are, if I'd have raised F1's from fry, then depending at least to some degree on the species involved, soon enough
they'd have a great chance to look just as "good" as wilds.
I think maybe this bears reckoning. Of course I have an opinion, mine and mine alone, not to be shared anytime soon. But something deserves consideration:
For instance, suppose you were a distributor, or wholesaler, importing and selling hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of wild tropical fish of (m)a(ny) given species. About every 6-7 years nature herself might require that you rotate your brood stock on a given species and/or population.. So, for sake of argument, you collect about XYZ (or more if possible depending) "new" or "young" wilds. Then back home, you net up a good number of them, maybe not all of them, but (very roughly) around 50 or more? and carefully pick out a dozen or so of the "most obviously good looking" (calling them that based on your own prior experience) to breed. Chances are, the F1's are going to be (at least?) "good looking." Isn't that one way that a breeder/wholesaler might consider doing things? A "bigtime" collector of wilds has every opportunity to do just that. It might help if you had 80 acres, including 27 ponds, and three giant greenhouses with a 100+ huge concrete vats inside to help "manage the inventory." Gives a pretty wide margin to "pick and choose from." Helps produce large numbers of "selectively bred" F1's would be my way of looking at it. I'm not an "expert" or "pro" at animal husbandry. Still, it's something to consider, I suppose.
For sport, I'm starting to raise several species of a few random F1's near to sexual maturity; as well there is a slightly increased demand for larger animals locally. I'd bet, based on what I'm seeing, that a very substantial number of them "look as good or better" than my breeders. Maybe not like they'd be "expected" to look like when in the wild, or held vats, under direct sunlight, consuming tons of available algea (the only true piscivore I'm doing is P. loisellei), but as good as the parents look. All my wild brood stock was/is hand selected for "exceptional characteristics." That's because a) of personal preference and b) "consumers" and/or (more often) hobbyists and/or (always) distributors require it. My present understanding is that the chances are greater than not that the majority of my F1's will "inherit" many of those "exceptional characteristics." There should also be "recessive traits" (I think that they are called) or "phenotypical variances" that will be greater/lesser "pleasing" to the eye. But in my humble estimate the goal is always the same: to "load the dice" whenever one can, in the interest of spawning nothing but "exemplary" animals to the extent that is within the realm of possibility. And despite the fact that I've been saying this six ways to Sunday, I'm under the impression that everybody from Seagrest Farms on down, from the average hobbyist to my ex-brother-in-law, is trying hard to do just that, despite the fact that one or two smearmongers fail to appreciate that the "most sucessful" businessmen are normally the "most sucessful" at achieving the desired exemplary spawns. Not every single animal is bound to be exemplary. But we know from experience that a sub-dominant cichlid, when re-housed in a situation where he/she can establish dominance, can go from "average" looking to "great" looking due to nutrition and mood. Some beautiful, latent "phenotypical" traits are allowed to manifest I think. I'm not sure at all exactly why. Obviously, I'm not an ichthyologist let alone a biologist or geneticist. All I know is what I see, based on raising and breeding some animals under a broad range of circumstances, as often as not born of necessity or sheer accident. I'm an observer, not a preacher. If I'm wrong, then I'd hope to be wrong in good company.
No one wants "average" animals in his/her tank. Everybody wants "the best." The "average" animals that I've seen at Don's farm are very few and very far between. Maybe 1/100 or 2/100 of the many thousands I've had a chance to look at and handle I distinctly remember being "average." Perhaps that's because I have an ongoing passionate love affair with North & Central American cichlids. It may not have anything whatsoever to do with what appears to be Don Conkel's exceptional skills as a breeder and importer. I certainly don't bow to Don Conkel or anybody else is this earthly realm. And can't recall asking anybody else to bow of late. So it may be 100% due to the fact that American cichlids in general are nonpariel, from wild to F? It may just be that, in case it was overlooked, "It's about the FISH, stupid!" I guess that's my only "Gospel" truth on this or any other forum. Never claimed to be an expert. Anyone is entitled to do as he/she pleases. Including "put that in your pipe and smoke it," if you care to.
Here's an F1 guttulatus at around 4". Just ONE example. Based on what I see so far, maybe he'll look "better" than his wild dad, who is phenomenal, and the ONLY reason he was "isolated" was because he got big so quick.
