Is this frowned upon?….

[Man-made Monsters]

So I have these two Vieja Melanura that are getting aggressive with their tank mates and starting to clear a spawning site. They are clearly from different collection locations based on their coloring differences. My question to my fellow MFKers is this. Is this frowned upon by anyone? Please be honest. I want to hear pros and cons. I’m going to let them do whatever they are going to do. If they spawn the babies will be from different blood lines, which I really like. In my mind that means the offspring should be a healthier fish due to no inbreeding. I have no experience with what the offspring would look like. I’m hoping for some great color variations. So please share your thoughts on this. Thanks everyone.

 

[..puSkar..]

If they breed. It'd be interesting to see how the babies turn out. GL

 

[tlindsey]

Only a purist would have a problem with it. If they are both pure and you have proof of where they were collected from I personally don't see a problem.

 

[xenacanth9]

+1

 

[Rass]

The way I see it, if you were to just call them vieja melanura with no claimed collection points, then they should just be considered hobby form fish. They are still the same species after all, and most hobbyists would love to have them unless they are really attempting to collect species from certain collection points. I have no problem with mixing fish as long as they are advertised as what they really are. The only time that can become a problem is when the fish end up in the hands of someone who doesn't know what they have. But what you're doing here isn't even really hybridization in my opinion. Same species, slightly different genetics. I'm sure they will look fantastic judging by the parents!

 

[newworld]

myself i would have no interest of the fry of “supposedly” the same species but different color types…

 

[Man-made Monsters]

These fish are pure Vieja Melanura. In fact the female came from TUIC but I don’t remember if he shared the collection location of the parents with me. The male was purchased from Global Fish Co. and he appears to be more of the Belize type covered in red and orange. I just got home from being out for most of the day and the female’s egg tube is dropping down. Her colors are really intense with teals, blues, and this incredible gold between her scales. I need to try to get some better pics of these two. They are glowing with color. Thanks for your feed back everyone. Keep the opinions coming….

 

[Man-made Monsters]

 

[Man-made Monsters]

 

[jeaninel]

Beautiful fish. Always been one of my favorites. ?