step by step guide to breeding EBJD's

[cgronko]

I thought i would post a step by step process of breeding EBJD's. Alot of people PM me and ask me how to do so since they see I have been successful at it. So here we go. First get some fish that are breeding size. The cheapest way would probably be to just get BGJD's at 1inch for about $5 each. Once they get to about 3.5-4inches they are going to start pairing off. When you see two of them that never leave eachothers side, you know you have pair! Put alot of flat rocks or a pot in the tank and get the rest of the fish out of the tank. Feed this pair alot of high protein food. I usually start feeding my breeders with frozen cooked shrimp 3 times a day. After a week of good eating your fish should be ready to breed. They will get darker and you should see the breeding tubes of the fish. Do a nice big 50% water change to help them out.

Alright now once you get eggs: heres two pics of females with their eggs. First is a BGJD female with eggs. 2nd is a EBJD female with eggs. By the way a BGJDxBGJD gives you 25% EBJD 50%BGJD and 25% regular JD fry. EBJDxBGJD gives you 50% EBJD and 50% BGJD. All the fry die if you breed EBJDxEBJD

The eggs should hatch on the 3rd day. The parents will take care of them. They will dig pits and move the fry from pit to pit. On the 7-8th day I steal the fry from the parents and put them into a cycled 10 gallon tank. on the 9-10th day the fry becoming free swimming. You do not feed the fry until the 9-10th day when they become fry swimming. At this point have freshly hatched baby brine shrimp ready for the fry. Feed the fry 3 times a day on baby brine shrimp for atleast 4weeks. Here are the fry at about a week after free swimming:

I tried to get a close up but all you can see is their orange bellies from the baby brine shrimp:

At about 4 weeks I seperated the EBJDs from the rest. You can tell the difference by the patterning on the fish. Here are the fish at 4 weeks:

Here is a Close up of the pattern of my EBJD:

Here is a close up of the pattern of a non-EBJD:

And here is a pic of a regular JD on the left and a EBJD on the right:

As you can see, the non-EBJDs have much thicker bars and are a little darker.

Now that they are in there own tank start to try feeding them crushed flakes. I usually feed them baby brine shrimp once a day and feed them crushed flake twice a day at this point. at about 6-7 weeks i take them completly off baby brine shrimp. They look like this at that point(about 7 weeks old, no blue yet)

Here is a pic at about 9 weeks:

This is a non-EBJD that i missed when seperating that is in the tank at about 9 weeks:

Here they are at about 12 weeks(3months) biggest fish are about an inch:

And then here they are now at about 3 1/2 months, biggest fish is about 1.5 inches:

At this point they are ready to be sold!! Now find some people that want some nice, high quality EBJD's!

 

[Freezekougra]

At this point they are ready to be sold!! Now find some people that want some nice, high quality EBJD's!

ME :O

 

[Toby_H]

The cheapest way would probably be to just get BGJD's at 1inch for about $5 each. Once they get to about 3.5-4inches they are going to start pairing off.

Are you promoting breeding siblings as a way to breed "nice high quality EBJDs"?

I can completely agree and understand that sibling x sibling breeding once in a while is not a big deal... but it is well known that Blue Dempseys have been excessively inbred. Key word here is excessive... inbreeding them yet one more time and then slapping the label "nice, high quality" on them seems a bit exaggerated at best...

Myself and several others have gone through painstaking steps to diversify bloodlines. I’d hate to see you suggesting this is all wasted effort and that inbreeding siblings is an equal breeding program…

 

[dwilder]

as long as the fish are of good quality breeding siblings helps pass on the good qualitys so it can be very useful

 

[flowerpower]

as long as the fish are of good quality breeding siblings helps pass on the good qualitys so it can be very useful

Yeah, same with people.

 

[yogurt_21]

lol I try to seperate siblings when breeding mollies for feeders, couldn't imagine breeding siblings to sell.

 

[cgronko]

Hey,
No i would not promote inbreeding sibilings. What i should have wrote was, get some BGJDs from two seperate sources. I have never inbred these fish and all my pairs are unrelated.

 

[Toby_H]

Hey,
No i would not promote inbreeding sibilings. What i should have wrote was, get some BGJDs from two seperate sources. I have never inbred these fish and all my pairs are unrelated.

Thanks for clarifying that point...

as long as the fish are of good quality breeding siblings helps pass on the good qualitys so it can be very useful

IF (big if) you are starting with wild caught stock that are healthy and have traits you wish to keep, then this is true and is commonly practiced in line breeding...

But when your starting point is working with a line of fish that have already been excessively inbred (such as Blue Dempseys have been), then further inbreeding only increases the degree of "inbreeding depression" and increases the effects of the existing weaknesses known to the line of fish...

On the contrary, outcrossing them with healthy lines of Dempseys will introduce new genetics that are free of the weaknesses currently associated with Blue Dempseys.

If you do a little bit of research on "inbreeding depression" you will see that Blue Dempseys are commonly victims of the majority of the weakness/deformities associated with it.

If following the advice of this thread, be sure to talk to the person you are buying your Blue Gene Dempseys from to ensure they are as distantly related as possible.

 

[dwilder]

yes if working with fish that have genetic problems sibling breeding can increase those problems but this is not remedied by just out crossing if the fish you use has the same problems on the other hand if you have supieror fish with little genetic problems then inbreeding these fish actully will pass on these good qualitys it all depends on the quality of stock not whether they are related or not there has been some very useful info on this subject printed as of lats

 

[Toby_H]

DWilder, if you read my above post, we explained the same thing...

IF (big if) you are starting with wild caught stock that are healthy and have traits you wish to keep, then this is true and is commonly practiced in line breeding...

But when your starting point is working with a line of fish that have already been excessively inbred (such as Blue Dempseys have been), then further inbreeding only increases the degree of "inbreeding depression" and increases the effects of the existing weaknesses known to the line of fish...

On the contrary, outcrossing them with healthy lines of Dempseys will introduce new genetics that are free of the weaknesses currently associated with Blue Dempseys.

I'm glad we could agree on that