OK--here's the story-My two Oscars were busy 'redecorating' for a number of weeks in our tank. We have a number of flat rocks in our tank, and one day I noticed that some eggs had been laid on one of the flat rocks close to where the Oscars were decorating...The Oscars were very protective of the eggs..Next thing I know, I saw a bunch of baby fish swimming around, taking refuge inside of a porous lava rock that we have in the tank. Great--I thought-- we have a bunch of baby Oscars. But the more those baby fish grew, the more they became cobalt blue, so I thought that they were actually cobalt blue babies. But even within the school of new babies, some didn't look like the others-- they were still cobalt blue, but they were smaller and were shaped more like Oscars.I figured if they weren't Oscar babies, the Oscars would have eaten them, since they were used to eating small feeder goldfish. But the Oscars left them alone (and still continued to leave them alone to this day).My question is, is it possible for Oscars and Cobalts to interbreed?Anyone else have any experience with this?
Cross breeding?
- Thread starter Psycmeistr
- Start date
There were two cobalts in the tank at the time (one died during a tank transfer)
This one pictured above is one of the 'parent cobalts' that continues to survive
This one above is one of the 'normal' looking baby cobalts- very much like the parents, has the yellow 'egg' markers on the bottom fin.
Now this one is one of the goofier ones. Notice he has a rounder body, also the spot near his gills is so much more prominent; also, he has stripes, kind of like an Oscar...
)Definitely in color, though in body size and shape he is much different than the others. What surprised me the most was that the Oscars didn't only not touch them, they were actually the most protective of them. Also, what throws me off about him is the stripes on his body (not prominent in the photo, but very noticeable up close)
Hm... well I guess it is possible (as it's possible for anything to a, 'cross' with anything really, genetics isn't a simple clear cut game) - but quite implausible - perhaps not as implausible as say, a monkey mating with an octopus, but nonetheless Africans and Americans diverged a long time ago, or at least longer than when the Americans themselves start to diverge so it does feel rather odd.
Since it is possible - I say if nothing, grow the ones that look like oscars out. Sometimes fish can take charge of other fish' eggs and fry, but eh, it's not common and it is weird in this case, because cobalt blues are also mouth brooders, so to find cobalt blue eggs lying around is odd. XD
Yeah, grow them out and see what they look like. Again, it's possible that they hybridized. But possible again doesn't equate to plausible.
Since it is possible - I say if nothing, grow the ones that look like oscars out. Sometimes fish can take charge of other fish' eggs and fry, but eh, it's not common and it is weird in this case, because cobalt blues are also mouth brooders, so to find cobalt blue eggs lying around is odd. XD
Yeah, grow them out and see what they look like. Again, it's possible that they hybridized. But possible again doesn't equate to plausible.
There were probably two spawns in the tank, your cobalts and the oscars. The chance of your oscars and cobalts crossing is zero...it just cannot happen. The cobalts that do not look like they are supposed to should be culled or used as feeders for other fish.
Okay, let's assume that it's separate tanks and those fries are still cobalt blues (which I do think is the case, somehow, despite what happened), why should they be culled? They're not deformed in any way, only different. Unnecessarily culling to make sure fish fit a 'standard profile' will only whittle down the gene pool, which doesn't really do anything good.