I’ve started a project to hybridize some Central American fish, and I’d like to know if it’s possible to cross these species: Cryptoheros spilurus, Amatitlania nigrofasciata, Thorichthys meeki, and Vieja zonata. Looking forward to your advice!
Is it possible to hybridize these species?
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Spilurus and nigrofasciata can likely hybridise; meeki x nigrofasciata crosses have apparently been bred before, but it's difficult at best to induce spawning, from what I've heard.
I don't think you'll get anywhere trying to cross a vieja with a convict, lol.
Hybridfish7
works with a lot of Cryptoheros/Amatitlania. I personally dislike hybrids, and feel as though they're unnecessary and harmful if not strictly regulated, but there's certainly a market for them, and some of them are admittedly rather pretty.
Every CA cichlid is able to hybridize, it's just a matter of getting them to breed. Vieja sexually mature way larger than most amatitlania/cryptoheros. In theory it would be possible with a large enough male of those species since most of them get 6-8".Spilurus and nigrofasciata can likely hybridise; meeki x nigrofasciata crosses have apparently been bred before, but it's difficult at best to induce spawning, from what I've heard.
I don't think you'll get anywhere trying to cross a vieja with a convict, lol.
I personally dislike hybrids, and feel as though they're unnecessary and harmful if not strictly regulated, but there's certainly a market for them, and some of them are admittedly rather pretty.
However I would like to advise against this. If you're in America, we do not have pure spilurus very often. There are no exporters across their native range, and they are hard to collect for the aquarium trade, so every one we have counts. I haven't seen them for sale in 7 years. It would be incredibly wasteful and selfish to use them in a hybrid project as opposed to breeding more of the species itself. None of the others are that uncommon, but just try not to expand to other amatitlania at a minimum, as nigrofasciata and septemfasciata are the only two that have stable populations in the wild. IUCN classified sajica as vulnerable, and kanna/myrnae as endangered. CARES classifies nanolutea and altoflava as vulnerable. Other CA cichlids are slowly making their way onto the red list because of how small their ranges usually are. Now that we don't have COTA, we pretty much only have one person importing pure CA cichlids to the US-- all the more reason to keep what we can pure. I know you are one person and probably won't sell the fish, but there is also now a few dozen strong Facebook group that is attempting to remake the flowerhorn out of the aforementioned species with disregard for conservation.
Long term tank bred fish that have been in the hobby for decades are fair game in my eyes as these are probably mixtures of similar species and populations already. If you are in Europe, please destroy their stock so the aquarium trade relies on America again and we can get cool stuff without the Germans sniping cool stuff out of exports
The dumbing down of species diversity by producing unidentifiable mutts has already run so rampant.
And you want to add more to the already genetically boring hodgepodge?
This is one reason I left the US to find the few real species that are left in the wild before they are all homogenized into one non-species.
I consider the practice shameful.
And you want to add more to the already genetically boring hodgepodge?
This is one reason I left the US to find the few real species that are left in the wild before they are all homogenized into one non-species.
I consider the practice shameful.
As for Spilurum they aren't in the hobby because there isn't enough interest therefor no money to be made to make it worth to collect them, like most new world cichlids. They are very common in their range I've caught them in Guatemala and Belize wo even trying…another good example would be Macracanthus i heard and was told was very uncommon fish which also was the first fish in the net in Guija…
Macracanthus are making their rounds nowadays, they are constantly on Aquabid and I see a few vendors selling them.
Duplicate thread posted below.
www.monsterfishkeepers.com
Is it possible to hybridize these species?
I’ve started a project to hybridize some Central American fish, and I’d like to know if it’s possible to cross these species: Cryptoheros spilurus, Amatitlania nigrofasciata, Thorichthys meeki, and Vieja zonata. Looking forward to your advice!
www.monsterfishkeepers.com
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