Help with breeding electric yellows

[Turbo Trix]

Hi, I've sold off all my Africans except for my electric yellow, which I couldn't bring myself to sell. I've always wanted to try breeding fish and thought this would be the perfect opportunity.

Now, onto the questions. Can I buy fish which are brothers/sisters and breed without deformities? The only info on inbred fish has been father/daughter. Or should I try sourcing fish from different areas? (Which will most likely reduce quality of fish as most EYs are pretty crappy ATM). Is there any special precautions/steps I should take before breeding? I'm not worried about the babies being eaten by other EYs in the tank as I'm not trying to turn a profit (otherwise I'd breed F1s or something).

Any and all help is much appreciated.

Cheers,

[tranced]

im pretty sure every yellow in the country is somehow related by this point. having said that, i would try and source some from different colonies. i would not drop my standards at all to do it though, if you can find high quality fish from different sources then thats great. if not, just breed the best looking ones you have. cull mercilessly...

[frankenstrat]

FYI, you can't breed F1 yellows, they are extinct in the wild, but as previously said, if you are very diligent about sourcing only the best you can have a good outcome

[rosco]

There are plenty of great yellows about it is just about get some fish from different sources and picking and choosing what you breed with.

I am not sure they ate extinct in the wild but they are illegal imports (not to own) and possibly exports from the lake similar to duboisi due to low numbers so if you see someone advertising f1 yellows be suspicious.

Cheers

Rosco.

[Turbo Trix]

Thanks guys, I found a nice EY at my LFS but he's only about 1.5". How fast would it grow if feed well on algae wafers and cichlid attack food?

Also, is there any way to tell which are male and which are female at around that size? Not sure if I posted this in the OP but there's only one in my tank ATM and I'm not sure wether its male or female (don't want more than 2 males as I'm only going for 4-5 females).

Cheers,

[DFishkeeper]

They're hard to vent sex accurately until they get to 6cm or so. I wouldn't worry about breeding with siblings, just breed with the best quality fish you can get your hands on.

Pity you're so far from the Gold Coast, I have been line breeding electric yellows for many years now and usually have young vent sexed quality breeders available at reasonable prices. Link below to some pictures of my strain :

http://www.qldaf.com/forums/photography-video-lounge-23/electric-yellows-89210/

http://www.qldaf.com/forums/general-aquarium-discussion-19/my-quality-yellows-dfishkeepers-93946/

Cheers, Doug

[Turbo Trix]

They're hard to vent sex accurately until they get to 6cm or so. I wouldn't worry about breeding with siblings, just breed with the best quality fish you can get your hands on.

Pity you're so far from the Gold Coast, I have been line breeding electric yellows for many years now and usually have young vent sexed quality breeders available at reasonable prices. Link below to some pictures of my strain :

http://www.qldaf.com/forums/photography-video-lounge-23/electric-yellows-89210/

http://www.qldaf.com/forums/general-aquarium-discussion-19/my-quality-yellows-dfishkeepers-93946/

Cheers, Doug

I don't suppose we could work out some way to courier some up to me? AFAIK, all it requires (for cichlids) is a heat pack(s) and oxygen tablets (and obviously a reputable courier with experience transporting fish and plenty of padding).

[DFishkeeper]

Sorry matey, all my experiences with using couriers to deliver fish have been bad ones

I have oxygen and bags here, but the only shipping I do nowadays is somewhere that has direct flights from Gold Coast airport, and I rarely even do that nowadays, the cost has gone through the roof.

Cheers, Doug

[Buccal]

DFishkeeper,,, you may not actually know it,, but it's likely you have a German line yellow there.

I'm going to clear up a few things here about yellows as it always seems controversial.

It's said that yellows are almost extinct,, we'll it's known that there were never great numbers to begin with,,, thats why the genetics don't vary to much due to not wanting to take to many of what is already not much off.

So I'll start.

L.caeruleus electric yellow is a xanthic form of the Lab morph from Nkata bay, Malawi.

Caeruleus in Latin means blue.

A famous diver named Stuart Grant discovered a extremely small population or large colony of the xanthic Lab at Lions cove.

There was never large populations of these in the first place because of the xanthic circumstance.

This population was collected from twice.

Another area in Lions cove had a lesser attractive varient of yellow which is more pale with a white belly.

These get confused of being lesser in genetic quality, but they are not, as they are just another varient.

The truth of the yellow is,,,,, is that there are 3 types of yellow in oz,,,,,,

The original xanthic yellow.

The white belly yellow.

The German line bred xanthic yellow (all yellow Kukusa).

All this info can be second checked for support by googling........ Labidochromis caeruleus by Marc Elieson.

If some of you have been around long enough to see all the yellows come and go,,,, then this article actually explains a lot when thinking back all those years coming across different appearance yellows.

What can come in and what can't does not make any difference on what is here.

[DFishkeeper]

Hi Buccal,

I have been linebreeding my electric yellow strain for around 10 years now, bringing in new blood whenever I have the opportunity to acquire a nice male that appears not to be one of mine. So there are quite a lot of different lines contained in my bloodline.

I originally started line breeding electric yellows because I was disappointed with the poor quality of the fish available at the time, specifically the lack of bright solid colour and the dark barring on the sides of most of the fish available at that time.

I view this as a never ending project. I have been successful to date in achieving consistent bright solid colour in my strain, and at least one anal fin egg spot on most males and even on some females. I am currently working on achieving consistent solid dark barring in dorsal, anal and ventral fins on both males and females, as I personally prefer the contrast of this look. I am also currently working on increasing the body depth overall in my fish, particularly males through the shoulder.

Cheers, Doug

[Link2Hell]

Hi Buccal

Caeruleus in Latin means blue.

this is why what we had 30 odd years ago under that name was a blue/lavender

colour and should have been labelled L. pallidus , no need to worry they are

lost to the hobby here ........ just a history note

there may have been 3 different geographics of Yellows come in at

different stages but I doubt there would have any geographic labelling

of them so it would appear as with most species that appear without correct

location details when distributed to the hobby they will be as one unless

the original buyers have recorded locale details from the sources which I

highly doubt

so as I said it leaves us with an "Australian aquarium strain"

[DFishkeeper]

I agree with you, Chris. What we have here is definitely an "Australian aquarium strain" with some hobbyists like myself breeding selectively to achieve our own personal preference in terms of body shape and colouration. There are some really nice strains getting around in Australia nowadays.

Cheers, Doug

[Buccal]

Yes, I think so to on what you both have mentioned.

The kukusa though I have a feeling is floating around in its fresh line form in oz.

I to have been working with them,,,, but I don't think the quality is as fixed as yours appears to be Doug.

A small percentage of my offspring sometimes don't show that vivid color wrapping right round the belly.

Diet can also portray the extra quality appearance,

Jeez, If there were more people like us choosing other species to do this line breeding program thing,,, then quality of our bread n butters would tenfold.

Maybe Doug a bit down the track as my fry ATM are only a day old,,, I can send you pics to see if their worthy of introduction to yours.

The parents of these are selected with dense color wrap around the whole body.

And maybe ship 20 for 20 or something like that. ......

[tranced]

i agree totally about the black barring. so many i see have broken or feint black lines which looks terrible imo. when i saw this male i just had to grab him, had to fish him out of a 8ft tank filled to the brim with rocks, but it was worth it i think!

my females do not have the same extent of barring obviously, so im interested to see how the fry will grow up. got about 40 or so nearing 3cm now

[Buccal]

Yes, nice another clean look.

Yellow quality today is better than 5-6 years ago.

There is something else I've noticed also, is that there is a bloodline around in Perth that has great color but has a high percentage of sinking belly and waisting, it's very weird,,, thinking there may be a species of bacteria that's passed from parents or maybe some type of organ deformity/failure.

Because the color was so good, a lot got around and I saw this problem quite a bit. Weird.

[Yabbie Dabbie Do]

I have been line breeding my yellows exactly like you DFishkeeper. I have been changing up hand picked males and have been hand picking fry over the years to have both male and females with dark pectoral and anal fins. I now have 60% females in my colony looking like the above male in the above pic. The hardest thing is getting the consistency in fry. I recently grew out 40 of my fry with all dark finage to only get 11 females out of them all. Hopefully in time I will get a higher consistency of m/f ratio with the dark finage.

[FullyYellow]

What tranced has is what I'd consider the perfect electric yellow

[DFishkeeper]

What tranced has is what I'd consider the perfect electric yellow

I'm with you, that male is special. The challenge now is to get fry of that quality consistently.

Cheers, Doug

[markfnq]

my best male . a one of out of hundreds i have just about given up trying to get good yellows up here in cairns

spent hundreds getting stuff sent up from down south and end up with white bellies or the wasting that bucal talks about

busy breeding other stuff but would like to get a few QUALITY yellows to play with i only have two females of equal quality to go with this guy and

a tank full of b grade yellow i dont even strip. just need dfishkeeper (doug) to send me up some of his AAA yellows

cheers mark

[Buccal]

If those females you have breed, then you should be set, if the genetics holds its line of quality.

Yellows grow fast in highly oxygenated and constantly refreshed water.

[nuffsaid01]

Yup hopefully doug is sendin me some nice yellows next month

[DFishkeeper]

We'll have to try and organise it one day, Mark. Main problem is I don't go to Brisbane airport and there are no direct flights to Cairns from Gold Coast airport, which is only 15 minutes from me. Also Toll and AAE put up the shipping rates substantially.

Cheers, Doug

[CichlidProfessional]

I have also been line breeding yellows for about years now, I find that, I have to add a new male to a batch of my females, to raise the fertility rates....However ive seen some people line breeding to remove all the black from the dorsal fin creating "Solid Electric Yellows", although the specimens i have seen have abit of black on the edges of the dorsal fin (no consistency yet)...There is also a hybrid E. Yellow cross Red Zebra (Metriaclima Estherae) aimed to creates so called "Solid Electric Yellows", I have recently seen these at LFS selling at pure breed rates

[tranced]

i dont understand this need to breed away the black colour??? the black edge is what makes them look so striking in the first place. if you want a solid yellow fish theres barlowi, salousi, kingsizei etc

[CichlidProfessional]

I agree with you...The black and yellow make the contrast and popularity of colour...I just wanted to add it the conversation, seemed relevant to line breeding aspects.