Hey Cichlid Breeders.....

[Vicious_Fish]

When you plan on breeding a species of cichlid, people say you should buy 6 babies, and let them pair up. Now if you buy them from a LFS/LPS, don't you think they are all related and that inbreeding with accur if they are paired up? Is this bad? I've heard that if you want certain colors in bettas then you have to use inbreeding. I know it's "All relative in West Virginia", but inbreeding weakens the gene pool and can cause birth defects. Does this happen with cichlids as well?

 

[xEchOx]

I've always bought from two different stores. One is a chain (petco, petsmart), and one is a 'ma and pa' pet store. This would hopefully prevent getting fish from the same parents...

 

[labiatus55]

if the shops are anywhere near eachother then chances are the fish come from the same supplier anyhow

 

[Hawkfish3.0]

It's not as much of a problem with fish as it is with people. When you'll run into problems is when you have, say a breeding pair of cons and two of that pair's fry breed, and and two of their subsequent fry breed, and so on and so on. You will end up with funky fish. Like labiatus55 said, they probably all come from the same supplier anyway. I found when I worked in retail briefly, that the big chains and the small LFS' get thier fish from the same vendors anyway.

Side note: I used to live in Mechanicsburg, over in Georgetown Crossing, behind the Silver Springs Commons. Nice town.

 

[big train]

I have had sucess in using that idea on raising small ones and letting them pair off.I get mine like XechoX said and there is no way to tell if a lfs has the same supplier as another but it's doubtful that they would be the same supplier there are many to chose from.I have asked several lfs in my area about their fish suppliers and they would not devulge such information so they will not co-operate with me .On the inbreeding question my opinion is that it's not a big deal but like your self i try to not allow inbreeding but some info i have read on fh's and other types of cichlids say it can strengthen certain aspects of the fish's make up.For example i was thinking on making a batch of white devils so i would take this mostly white rd and breed him back to his mom who is about half white making a big batch of fry that should be mostly white and still geneticly stable.I have not tryed it yet but it should work so some inbreeding is o.k. just don't take the inbread fry and double back with those cause that would be heavy west virginia style hog calling ridge running inbread screwing kind of stuff then.

 

[Vicious_Fish]

Thanks for you info guys. I just recently started breeding convicts and I bought the male from the LFS and got the female from a friend of mine that breeds them. I didn't want to start with a related pair just for this reason.

P.S. Yes Hawkfish, it is a nice town. I live on the other side of Mechanicsburg near the turnpike.

 

[dovii88]

order some online

 

[OscarRobinson]

I'm not sure about fish but with dogs inbreeding causes the strong genetic traits to become stronger but it also causes the weak genetic traits to become weaker. I'm sure it must be similiar.

 

[carpediem]

Shout out from Mars, PA (20 miles North of Pittsburgh)

In my experience, problems come in when you breed successively without adding new stock i.e. two fish produce fry, you breed two from that clutch, then two from the successive clutch, then two from that clutch and so on. You need to add new genes to your stock occasionally.

 

[Vicious_Fish]

I've never ordered a "Living Creature" online before besides about 5,000 crickets once. But finding a male Parachromis loisellei for my female is like finding a needle in a haystack at my LFS's. I might have to do that.