REC;298163; said:
in fact in part you are all correct......................FH depending on which variation are primarily 90% Trimac. The other breeds that form FH with the Trimac is Parrots,RedDevils,RedTerrors and midas. I have seen a large majority of FH's sold at LFS as Trimacs or vise versa. In fact i have a group of 5 Trimacs in a 120 gallon that range from 2.5-5" and i'm trying to get a breeding pair. But i owned a BlueDragon FH and it was that fish that made me invest into Trimacs. To me from the juvenile stage until 7" you can't tell the differences between the 2 species because they are that alike. Although i have nothing against hybrid fish i'd personally own a trimac over any FH only because at least the Trimac is PURE.....When you buy a dog do you get a PURE bred or a MUT(FH)......You decide!!!!!!1
Well this guy was banned so he probably won't read this. Don't listen to any of this garbage. Flowerhorns have trimac in them and low grade flowerhorn do resemble trimacs more than other fish. Flowerhorn are not 90% trimac. Some strains don't even have trimac in them. If you can't tell tell whether you have a trimac or a flowerhorn by 7" you probably shouldn't keep fish. That or you actually have all trimacs or your flowerhorn are such low grade they look like trimacs. Typically you can tell a FH when they are 1". Also the majority of trimacs you buy in stores are not pure. Getting a "pure" trimac is difficult and odds are you will have to find them from someone like Jeff Rapps. Seriously some people just think they know everything.
Flowerhorn are great fish that are mulitple breeds or species of fish, from similar genus/families. Supposedly it is still a secret as to the origin of the flowerhorn, however there are definite characteristics from specific fish that do make up FH. Also there are several different strains of flowerhorn which could possibly contian more specific dominant triats from the fish that go into their creation. There are the "basics" as I like to call them. How they are line bred or bred in I don't necessarily know, however I do know that these fish are a definite part of the creation of FH.
Midas Cichlid (Amphilophus Citrinellus)
Red Head Cichlid (Vieja Synspila)
Texas Cichlids (Herichthys Cyanoguttatus or Herichthys Carpintis)
Trimac Cichlid (Amphilophus Trimaculatus)
Festae Chichlid (Cichlasoma Festae)
Many people believe that blood parrots are a part, this is in part true since BP are midas x synspila.
Severums are not part of FH.
Red devils would not be used as they are "inferior" to midas and too similar.
Jack Dempsey cichlids are not used.
Also many people believe that flowerhorns don't breed true. This is false, I have bred Flowerhorns to flowerhorns and the resulting batch was 100% flowerhorns.
There are fish that can be crossed back with a flowerhorn to create a different strain of flowerhorn. I.e. If you breed a flowerhorn with a synspila or blood parrot, the result is a FH called a Kamfa. Many people breed back their flowerhorn with Carpintis to re-introduce more pearls.
Also there are several basic types of flowerhorn that most people don't realize. They are : Golden Monkey or Kamalau, ZZ or Zhen Zhou (these are most common), Kamfa, ZZMalau or Thai Malau which is a cross between Kamalau and ZZ, Kamfamalau which is Kamfa x Kamalau, and Jin Kang which is a faded yellow or orange flowerhorn, and Tan King which is a kamfa x zz.
Hope this helps, I am no expert so if anything is off or I have forgot to mention something please let me know.