I have never tried breeding but have been doing alot of research. I think i will start simple. My question is how do you select your breeding fish? Do you order 6 fish from rapps and wait for a pair? Wont this cause inbreeding? If i wanted to start breeding convicts would i have to hit up 6 different stores so the fish arnt related? If i take and adult male and an adult female of the same species and put them in a tank what are the chances they breed? Thanks MFK
Where do you get your breeders?
- Thread starter FishingOut
- Start date
i say most of the ppl inbreed and they dont even think about it.. They always get a group, make a pair and breed them.. I guess it's ok with fishes because they all seem fine in the human eyes.
But Im like you. I like them not to be siblings. but i dont have to go to 6 different places. I'd get a male from one place and a group of females from another.
Right now, I have one super nice Arhentea.. All his siblings are nice too.. But I got rid of the rest of the siblings and kept him, the best one. I'll just raise him and maybe we'll run into love one day.
But i guess it's ok to breed him with his siblings too because they are like all quality fishes.
to me, one or 2 generation of inbreed could pass. But i'd rather have them not related. It just feels better. cleaner. fresher to me somehow.
But Im like you. I like them not to be siblings. but i dont have to go to 6 different places. I'd get a male from one place and a group of females from another.
Right now, I have one super nice Arhentea.. All his siblings are nice too.. But I got rid of the rest of the siblings and kept him, the best one. I'll just raise him and maybe we'll run into love one day.
But i guess it's ok to breed him with his siblings too because they are like all quality fishes.
to me, one or 2 generation of inbreed could pass. But i'd rather have them not related. It just feels better. cleaner. fresher to me somehow.
IMHO, the inbreeding problem is vastly overated. It may be a problem factor in some cases but sibling breeding is very common in the wild. In fact, no one actually knows if imported fish are not in fact siblings or cousins, especially in the case of fishes with large spawns. I wouldn't lose a lot of sleep over it.
Inbreeding is scientificly known to mutate genepools. Never in good ways either. Ive heard if you inbreed siblings 3 or more times serious mutations happen. Extra organs, conjoins, deformed gills, Mutantions that drasticly effect health. Look at the EBJD for example, thats a very weak fish. Brings me to another point. Inbred reg. Jack Dempseys, This is a fish that has lost alot of its luster over time due to inbreeding.
I dont want to lose sleep, but i have a hard time relaxing when 3 feet away from me an animal is getting freak-nasty with his sister....
I dont want to lose sleep, but i have a hard time relaxing when 3 feet away from me an animal is getting freak-nasty with his sister....
You don't have to buy 6 fish for convicts just buy 2 females from 1 store and a male from another store.
Males have long dorsal and anal fins
Females have orange spots on the belly and round dorsal and anal fins
Males have long dorsal and anal fins
Females have orange spots on the belly and round dorsal and anal fins
FishingOut;4239937; said:
This is not correct. The mutated genes already exist in the fish. Inbreeding is a way to cause them to express by allowing these broken genes to concentrate until they appear to us through changes in shape, color, behavior, etc...
If the fish you are looking to breed are really common like convicts - you can buy from different sources to try to ensure diversity in the genes. If you are looking to breed something more exotic, then often you have to breed siblings as that is all that is available.
FishingOut;4239937; said:
I'm curious - What does the word "mutation" mean to you exactly? And the notion that reg. JDs "lost a lot of its luster over time" - is there any evidence of is it just speculation?
To answer your original question - start with wild fish is probably the easiest.
^what he said. Form what I understand about mutations is we are mutatants. Aging is a sign of cell mutation through the course of our lives. But I'm not educated in this matter so don't quote me.
Order some from Rapps and some more from Ken Davis and you'll prolabably get unrelated (mostly) fish to breed. Often they have wild and F1 available. there are others but these are the only tow I've bought from so I can't speak of the others.
Order some from Rapps and some more from Ken Davis and you'll prolabably get unrelated (mostly) fish to breed. Often they have wild and F1 available. there are others but these are the only tow I've bought from so I can't speak of the others.
peathenster;4240029; said:
FishingOut will need to answer this from his perspective. From my perspective - it is a broken gene or genes - that is the actual DNA gets messed up and it causes changes beyond just normal natural variation as seen in wild populations of fish. Some of these mutations are interesting to us fish keepers and others are not. Because the JD's were mentioned, we can talk about both the EBJD and the Gold JD. There is some debate on EBJD's and whether they are hybrids. My belief is they are another color form. Both the EB's & Golds are interesting. But in order to propogate these strains, you need to continue to inbreed to some extent.
So in the end, it depends on what your purpose is. Are you breeding fish just to say you bred fish and you don't plan to sell them, then it really doesn't matter. If you are looking to find a fish to breed with the intent to sell the fry, then I believe you should buy larger numbers of small fish from different sources and raise them up and try to select the best fish for breeding. When you do this, they may not like the mate you select for them so the probability of success is lower, but what you produce will likely be more desirable to most fish keepers.
For example - you buy 6 Festae from your LFS, raise them up and a pair forms and spawns. Many would be happy just to own this beautiful & rare fish so you could probably sell the young fairly easy. But if you bought wild caught fish from different sources and selected the best, they paired up and bred - these fry could command a little higher price and would be desireable to a wider group of fish keepers.
This is just my opinion - good luck in your endeavors...