They can. But what possible traits are you looking for in this hybrid? I just don't see anything nice looking coming from it.
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Rules of Hybridization In American Cichlids
- Thread starter Chrisplosion
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I want to know when my jack dempsey will reach sexual maturity. He is about 3-4 inches and has convicts with him and a large pleco and a couple dither fish
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My 3 & 1/2 in jack male and my 3in female convict are exhibiting breeding behavior
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Hi guys,
let me clarify, that I do not guarantee you will produce a RED texas with that combo...but the males WILL be fertile. The magic in the above breeding program is the texas blood is stronger, when done in reverse with more midas blood for instance it rarely works, no one knows why. Texas genes just aren't compatible with Amphilophus genes, somehow amp blood doesn't respond as well as texas blood to the mix. It takes a much lower % of texas to make a fertile male than it would midas...if that makes sense? Add the fader gene and pearling into the mix and you can understand why RTs are so expensive.
before I go any further let me also clarify, these "rules" are really more of a guideline...some fish break all of those rules, some have a slightly different set of rules...we're talking about hybrids here, their phenotypes & fertility rates are very elastic, not set in stone as pure species are.
And of course bp, kkp and mammons etc, muddy things up further because no one knows their exact genetic makeup, theres just no way of predicting fertility accurately until you back cross to a known fertile parent. For instance a pure species male or a proven male FH crossed to a female of the mammon/parrot complex will produce female fry, that when back-crossed to the fertile father (hybrid or pure, fertile is all that matters) should then produce fertile male fry.
As stated above all species differ in this regard, but generally speaking if it is at least 57.5% to 68% pure species, a hybrid strain should produce fertile males...I don't know with any certainty which differ from the norm, though I suspect synspila may be one that requires the syn genes to be in the 75+% range to produce fertile males...unconfirmed. I have also read tales of 50% pure, fertile, male Convict hybrids...but this too is unconfirmed.
Fertility can also be swayed by using related species in the mix, if for instance your FH is 1/2 midas, 1/4 trimac and 1/4 vieja, it should be fertile because Amphilophus spp are all so closely related. And therefore in this instance those genes can be treated as the "pure" percentage of the mix.
Another example (for you guys that like to dink with projects; ), JD x Green Texas, a female offspring bred back to either parent species (JD or texas) would produce fertile male young, and they could look pretty damn amazing...imho anyway.
A project I would reccomend to anyone interested in bps, kkps, or short body fish in general.
Choose a male CA cichlid, cross it to a bp, kkp, or other extreme sb fish. Choose the female sb offspring for holdbacks, back-cross to dad or unrelated male of same species, hold back all offspring, voila! You now have a fertile sb strain, choose the fry with the nicest sb body types.
There are two (possibly more?) types of dwarfisim that cause the short body phenotype as known in hybrid fish, bp, kkp etc. One causes the spine to be shriveled & wavy, one causes the spine to be shortened and fused, both seem to show up in bp/kkp and in pure species to bp/kkp cross's.
I never choose for the wavy spine form. I feel it's a huge mistake to do so, that includes purchasing a fish with wavy spine, I don't do it. Always choose the very obviously straightbacked fry, don't worry about the head so much if you plan to cross it to a pure species fish, or even a proven fertile hybrid fish. as long as it has a nice head/face shape it's all good.
The reason why is head/face shape varies wildly in any given hybrid spawn. You will for sure get sb fry with normal faces from a pure species to hook-headed parrot fish breeding, it's just one more trait to choose for....and even if the female is beakfaced and hookheaded she carries the genes for a more normal phenotype.
You will get much nicer results if you start with something like a female mammon or kkp with a really nice head & face. But trust me it's really not neccessary, if the male has nice head structure, or better yet is pure species and therefore has a very nice phenotype already, it truly doesn't matter.
All thats required is to choose fry of the desired type. Especially in regard to the actual length & appearance of the sb strain your're creating, some sb fish are nearly normal in appearance, some are little bulldogs, still others are somewhere in between. If you consistently pair fish with similar lengths/appearance, in no time the fry will start to become much more uniform in length & and will tend to match the parents in length/shape at maturity. This method will produce very visible results by the 3-4 generation. You should by then be producing sb fish of any type you choose in large numbers. Careful thought should be given about any potential holdbacks at this point, make sure you'r choosing the healthiest specimens.
