Although I could care less that other people want designer fish, and do know line breeding (man induced manipulation of genes to produce color variation, or long fins, etc, is not the same as, or not quite as repugnant to me, as hybridization, or as man made mutant production), it is still the kind of tinkering that's not for my anally puristic tanks.
If a fish is blue in nature (there are many), it is different than one made blue or candy apple red in the lab, or some amatuers basement.
I don't need someone to make JDs or acaras bluer than they are, there are plenty enough naturally blue Malawi cichlids if I want blue.
The problem comes in for me, when (as seems predominantly the case today) so many amateurs are manipulating fish, and turning them into LFSs as this or that, that the real ones are impossible to find.
In my tanks an unnaturally colored live bearer, cichlid, or anything just doesn't fit approach.
Many aquarists will mix continents, but I'm at a point where I don't want to even put fish from different small countries together.
It's personal taste, I liked the EBAs and would possibly have an EBJD but wouldn't go near a blood parrot or flowerhorn.
I think as people get more experienced in the hobby they start to prefer more natural fish and set ups.ive gone from a mixed and match community tank to so called "South American" tanks which had anything I liked from Mexico down to the bottom of the continent put in there. Probably due to the influence of this site my next tanks will be more biotope style with a lot more thought and research being done before the fish are decided upon.
But who knows where it will end? Maybe go totally artificial with glo fish and Fluoro green gravel and pink plastic castles. Not likely but my wife and daughter would love it if I did.
