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anyone still breeding msobo ? not many around


LithoMan

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Hmm, I wonder if he'd ship,, Perth is getting light on here for specialty Malawi passion,,, the reason I'm on here all the time.

I'm finding I have to look interstate to chase some things.

Well, seems like a reasonably safe number are still about then,, good.

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Msobo just seem to be one of those very variable type species.

Vividness in females,,, blue areas versus black areas in males and egg spot size and number as like a few other types of fish.

My consensus from gazing at German, American and UK pics anyway.

There are I believe two ways species evolve.

1. through environment leading to beneficial mutations (taking 100's - 1000's - 1000000's years).

2. though species hybridization then following gene fixation.

So possibly more than half of labeled species are results of past hybridization.

So differing genetical appearances in species could be due it's history evolution.

Locational variances (result of environment), can take place after a re-hybridization.

Once a specie has a locked stable genetic make up consistently reproducing mirror images,,, then this is what then is considered a pure breed.

All this gets into grey areas as human intervention in fish hybridization is not excepted in the hobby by mainstream as to be ever pure, no matter how stable the genetics get.

Yet human intervention in dogs created so called pure breeds and are labeled as to be pure breed.

So some fish that are pure species can have more variance than others species,,, it's all due to their historical evolution.

My thoughts,,,, ha ha, kind of side tracked and really is a whole lot more complicated.

Some times I get a little annoyed at hobbyists identifying some difference in what is a pure specie and declaring it as not pure.

But saying that,,, even the Pro's and discoverers get it wrong occasional and have to rename and classify.

It just goes to show how incredibly diverse the two lakes are, Malawi and Tanganyika, also following it's tributaries and small lakes.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Skippy, great looking fish. That's what they should look like.

I did buy a heap of fry a while back to try and get a colony going. The colour turned out to be really ordinary in the girls. Boys looked nice, but the girls ended up being a really pale orange. Almost dirty looking. Nothing like my original colony, or the ones I picked up from Lee Miller.

I didn't keep any, and haven't seen anything of quality for a long time.

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Last weekend I finally found some.

I got 17 of them, about 3.5cm and very very orange for their size.

About half of them have the slightest hint of blue in dorsal,,,, so these should be males.

A breeder here with a forum name called fishboy had a stunning colony about 3 years ago as I saw them when I went to buy orange leleupi from him.

A little breeder not far from me advertised on gumtree and said she had bought from him these msobo.

So I new the chances were good.

She is closing down and was the last of her msobo fry,,, so Im pretty lucky.

Sooner or later I'm going to have to sort out the photo bucket gaff.

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Her breeders were long gone.

The fry I bought were amongst Lombardi and few others.

The msobo were small, and maybe the last of anything she bred.

Apparently two people from Sydney asked her if she ships,, but obviously not, being just a house wife.

The biggest is 3.5cm and just today it's half way between orange and blue,,, looks like male heavy to.

They possibly could be slightly stunted because of males already revealing,,,, but otherwise healthy.

I have really good ceiling type lights which really let the natural colors show.

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Ha hah, majority of my fish get sent your way anyway,, it's in my interest to support where the strength in the hobby is.

Sydney supports better fish numbers, value holds for longer, higher prices for rarer fish are well accepted and the shops are more accommodating compared to other states,,,,, just a much more proffessional overview state wide.

The way I see it and through my experience anyway. :)

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That's something I'll have to also do.

That breeder a member of this forum from my observations is obviously balancing out the sex ratio of his colony.

Out of my 16-18 it looks like about half are males,,, they are just getting a touch of blue on top of head and finnage.

While the others are clear orange and deeper color.

I'm still a bit of from producing.

I have a feeling that the msobo will make a appearance before I start supplying.

Plenty of great in tune breeders in Sydney.

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Lets hope so. I want some too. I have a few that were bought from St George but the females have black at the top of their dorsal!! So.. they aren't true. My friend bought them from there and when he converted his tank to a planted tank, I offered to take them. Now I have these NQR msobo in a tank.. and I'm not allowed to euthanise them! :(

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  • 7 months later...

I managed to pick up the colony that was available in August last year. I only have the one tank these days which had a colony of yellows and duboisi in it. I sold the yellows to make room for the msobo and last weekend sold the duboisi as the tank was a little crowded. Hopefully they will be happier in a tank on their own.

Thus far they have had a few mouthfuls, they don't breed often but at least they have done something. At a guess I have 50 fry in a 2x18x18 and playing the waiting game for them to put on some size.

Normally I get 8-12 fry in a mouthful which from memory is about normal from the last time I kept them (2008). I did strip one girl in January and got 28 free swimmers from her. Hopefully she can produce that many a couple of times a year going forward.

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Is anyone else having success breeding their msobo or seen any available recently?

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No good ones. I tried to take a couple tonight but from the looks of a couple of the boys it was a tough afternoon after a water change. 5 of the 6 males have scales missing.

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That's what happened in my old colony. No sign of aggression of any consequence, then carnage! The dominant male just didn't tolerate the other males one day. It end with 5 females with mouthfuls. I guess he didn't want the other males getting any action.

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That's what happened in my old colony. No sign of aggression of any consequence, then carnage! The dominant male just didn't tolerate the other males one day. It end with 5 females with mouthfuls. I guess he didn't want the other males getting any action.

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