cross breeding.

[[enjoyable_attempt]]

Well if they were to cross breed, they would be labeled as just that, a "hyrbrid". Love the discussion guys

 

[lincolngoh]

what isnt responsible is the mass unkown pond breeding in thailand etc where parentage is unkown and rays are just sold with stupid names .

thats all.

They think that they are protecting their house specialty trade secret on how to produce that type of hybrid like coke protects it's secret recipe.

It's not difficult to breed both pure and hybrid rays in 1 pond. Simply only keep pure males on hand, and you can have a mix female ratio of pure and mixed breed rays.

The names are nothing more than branding, and I do agree that it confuses the hobbyist, cos SP rays are well know to morph tremendously as they grow older. It's always a gamble as to what you are going to get, and no promises should be made.

I prefer to let the hobbyist know the exact bloodline to the best of my knowledge and let him gauge for himself.

 

[ShadowStryder]

lincolngoh, I concur with everything you said. As long as lineages are
recorded and available.

 

[mshuangchao]

Yes hybridizing does occur in the wild, but to a very limited extent and restricted to certain geographical locations.
I'm not flaming at those who practice this, but I personally immensly dislike cross-breeds and selectively bred fishes like flower horns, blood parrots, koi, goldfish, guppies etc.
Personal opinion.

 

[keepinfish]

it may happen in the wild but why encorage it in the aquarium. do you really want to loose proper leo`s, henlei ect to end up with lots of cross bred rays which not only you dont know what they are but they will eventually all start looking the same.

Why encourage it? Like i said it would be nice to see smaller rays in captivity where more people can afford to keep these awewome animals.

Leos will always be leos crossbreeding will never make us loose leos

If they occur in the same area then yes.

That does not give humans the right to encourage it.

If it happens in the wild, and i like it... It does give me the RIGHT...

This thread is great

I agree!

There are not enough people in this world that keep rays to sustain a clean gene pool like the wild can. If you have more than one type of ray in your tank which most people do, you can't stop them from getting frisky. You only have to draw the line when the hybrids are taken to the labs and test tubes. If a ray cross breeds in the fish tank, chances are it would do the same in the wild.

All this talk against cross breeding sounds like nazi propaganda to me. There is no health argument against cross breeding as it actually produce tougher ray. Rays are going to be bred to suit the hobbyist taste for it's beauty. Nothing else. So cut the crap on preserving the species unless you intend to be the worlds first ray breeder to bring these pure breeds back to the amazon to release them.

With the quota, the less beautiful rays are not exported or thrown back. In a few generations the looks of the CB ray are going to improve through selective breeding till they look different/better from their wild cousins too.

Sellers mislabeling fishes is a human fault, not the rays. Hobbyist just have to trust ray sellers who have spend time and effort building up a reputation they value.

As for using mutts as an example, all 'pure breds' are wolf offshoots barely a few hundred years old.

People have been breeding offshoots of different fish for it's looks like goldfish from carp for hundreds of years... do you see the carp facing extinction? You see hobbyist complaining when a new breed of goldfish pops out?

...wait a minute, isn't the US president a mixed breed too...

lol

Hobbyist are second biggest threat to their survival next to deforestation so there is no point getting all high and might about protecting the rays. Like the arowana these fish will be safe from extinction long after the last wild one is gone because of their demand.

When we remove the ray from the wild, we have already forfeited the right to say we are preserving the species. The ray becomes a domestic pet and that is all there is to it.

Lastly, the fact that these ray can crossbreed already tell you that they are mutants hybreds from a common ancestor. We are only continuing what the random forces of nature began.

lincolngoh, I concur with everything you said. As long as lineages are
recorded and available.

 

[njackson]

have we being do this to dogs for years ,we have purebreeds and hybrids breeds still.

 

[DavidW]

Oh Boy!!!!!
Hybrids? NOT a fan at all.

in the wild natural crossbreeding is estimated at less than 1%. It will usually only happen in places where species ranges overlap. In the aquarium? I guess 75%-80% of tank bred rays are crossbreeds.
As far as I can tell, rays, like most animals , will usually only crossbreed if there is no choice. ie: when they are trapped together in a tank or an oxbow lake etc

So you are going to crossbreed to rays. Do you know if they both have a similar mouth ( large V small) ? teeth? do you know if they have similar stomachs? ( large V small) uterus? egg production? behaviour? etc etc. You may cross a labrador with a poodle but would you cross a Dane with a chihuahua? As the owner of your rays you have responsibility for their well being. Is it in the interest of the health of rays offspring to be crossbred given potential difficulties later? Are you creating something that only may live for a year or 2 vs the natural fairly long lifespan of rays? What is your plan and objective? Are you breeding the ray equivalent of a dog with 3 legs?
Or are you just going to randomly throw enough **** against the wall until some sticks? ( which any fool can do)

regarding reintroducing rays to the Amazon and the preservation of species. Some scientists are predicting the " Amazon Desert" within 50 years ( mathematical model at current rates) if deforestation is not halted, so there would be nowhere to put them anyway, but given the high rate of random hybridization going on in peoples' tanks/ponds, perhaps it would be a wise idea to keep 'clean' bloodlines before they all become impossible to understand or decode

Wild forms could become rare in the same way that wild forms of wolf have become rare and in a few cases extinct, while dogs, their hybrid descendants, are plentiful.
I am not in favor of " hybridization", but selective breeding within a species/variant is less problematic for me.

I am not sure how some folks are able to say that a particluar wild caught ray is a hybrid of this or that.
All ray patterns can be plotted on a bell curve. As an example, Leos: some have very few spots ( a photo of one with only 2 spots in RR's book) they can be found with many spots, such as the so-called 'Black Diamond' and 'Thousand Island' variants, but the massive majority is found in the middle of the 'bell' having a medium amount of spots. The same goes for their background color "blackness". Some are more grey, others are more vibrant black, but most are in the middle with a normal black. So perhaps the "(sp) variants" found are simply on one end of the bell curve for their type.

I guess it depends on your interest.
My interest was mostly in their biology, behaviour and place in the ecosystem. Hybrids can't inform much about those things. Patterns within a variety for me are a secondary interest.
I never had any interest in turning my wolves into lapdogs.

 

[sharp tooth]

im not totally against it. i my self have a pair of pearls and a female marble in the same tank so it may happen in my very own tank oneday.

i just think we have to be careful not to over do it and loose what we have.

 

[mshuangchao]

...

I am not in favor of " hybridization", but selective breeding within a species/variant is less problematic for me.

...

I guess it depends on your interest.
My interest was mostly in their biology, behaviour and place in the ecosystem. Hybrids can't inform much about those things. Patterns within a variety for me are a secondary interest.
I never had any interest in turning my wolves into lapdogs.

My intrests are more focused on the health, behavior and symmetric patterns.
As for selectively bred fish, I would like to share some of my experience here. I was catching fish from my dad's pond so that the pond could be renovated and as I cornered the fish into the shallows, all the wild carp jumped high into the air and escaped while not even one Koi did this. A result of selective breeding?

I must add, I'm indicating the sort of selective breeding that color and long fins etc. are the breeders only concern, that's why methods such as inbreeding are used to keep these traits.

 

[sharp tooth]

Why encourage it? Like i said it would be nice to see smaller rays in captivity where more people can afford to keep these awewome animals.

Leos will always be leos crossbreeding will never make us loose leos

yer then we can have rays for 2ft tanks!

like handbag dogs. bred to be as small as possible.
dosent matter if its bad for the rays, like english bull dogs, bred and bred, inter bred to get a flatter face and the more perfect bull dog look. dosent matter that they carnt f**king walk and have ALOT of health problems.
there are alot of things we cross breed and selective breed that we shouldent but ppl do.

next youll be telling me that in the wild they interbreed, farther x daughter, mother x son ect. so are you going to do it if you have a mother and son that look nice?