Original Flowerhorns

[Trimapit]

Sounds like you know plenty about breeding but outcrossing does not improve line breeding its the opposite, it helps relieve the burden of the line breeding by intorducing new genes. Some people who dont know breeding may encourage you but sounds like you have some worthy pairs of pure fish that would be more rewarding to breed. Plus you will be able to rehome them. When you cross two different cichlids you end up with mostly grey ugly things or fish with 1 cool feature and nothing else. If you do get something you like and want to breed it further theres the old fertility issues to deal with. Of course if you really do have the space and time and can deal with growing unknowns out to 2 or 3" and destroying hundreds of fish go for it. It is how we got flowerhorn after all.
What kind of dogs do you breed for hog hunting? Lots of guys in the south using staffies. I have always wanted to hint wild hog.

1) the outcross helps with line breeding when it comes to fertility. And you can start to loose the traits you wanted from line breeding. If you breed too tightly in dogs for example the females can start only having a heat cycle once a year to once every two years. Just outcrossing once every 6 or so breedings will keep the line going in the way you want and keep it fresh. I believe that is a big reason for the infertility rates in Flowerhorns. Because of too much inbreeding. I breed gamebred American Pitbull Terriers for catchdogs. I was also breeding Bandogs for a while but the intelligence seemed to go away some with the Mastiff blood added in there.