Peter_Gun_Riff Posted January 19, 2005 Share Posted January 19, 2005 just going off from an other post its been getting obviously worse ever since ive been in the hobby and thats the quality of our africans mainly but also others IMO instead of just breeding fish we need to crack down and kull and poorer quality fry from each brood i think an extensive list of the africans which need to be help should be created so breeders are aware that the species/varient is in need of a quality upgrade ill start with protomelas taeniolatus "Red Empress" and im not 100% sure but id say Sciaenochromis fryeri need some help to fell free to disagree with anything ive said as critisim is needed if we are going to increase our lines of fish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted January 19, 2005 Share Posted January 19, 2005 I do agree to some extent. There are a few breeders out there that cull fish still. I know I do and I know of others that do. If we started a list of fish that need help then it would go on for ever. I guess it comes down to buying good sized fry from ppl that have a good reputation. Saying this there are some fish, like peacocks, and blues that cant be assesed, quatlity wise, until the fish is at a fair size and then should be culled by the owner/breeders. Good topic to discuss though Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter_Gun_Riff Posted January 19, 2005 Author Share Posted January 19, 2005 There are a few breeders out there that cull fish still. I know I do and I know of others that do its the breeders that dont which will drop the quality as one or to bad batches bred with top batchs wont produce high quality fish if you know what i meen. the list only have to be of 20-30 species if that but it needs to be the most needy. keep them comming Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ducksta Posted January 19, 2005 Share Posted January 19, 2005 My personal belief is the quality is still here, in all/most species. The onus is just more now on the buyer to know what they are getting. Viewing parents, and sourcing multiple good lines (avoiding most inbreeding) will help in keeping the quality consistent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter_Gun_Riff Posted January 19, 2005 Author Share Posted January 19, 2005 My personal belief is the quality is still here, in all/most species. The onus is just more now on the buyer to know what they are getting. Viewing parents, and sourcing multiple good lines (avoiding most inbreeding) will help in keeping the quality consistent. but what about all the fish you dont take?? they will go to someone else. IMO a brood of 14 should be culled to the top 10 etc or even the top 5,6,7 etc. their are alot more poor quality fish then their is top Q but then their are the fish that dont need to be touched one bit etc your e.yellows not as good as my umbees Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ant Posted January 19, 2005 Share Posted January 19, 2005 Hmmm...just thinking about this topic. I believe mose LFS's get their fish from Wholesalers right? Well most of the fish that come from wholesalers are very poor quality. This means that most inexperienced buyers are getting these poor quality fish. Supplying good quality fish to wholesalers would be a good start. But i guess the problem there lies in the fact that wholesalers contract people to supply a certain amount of fish therefore wholesalers pay less because they are purchasing in bulk, and this could force the person contracted to supply sub par quality fish. But i'm sure that whole salers would still take fish from most breeders. Anyone have an opinion on this? Anthony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nannat Posted January 19, 2005 Share Posted January 19, 2005 or.....some wholesalers genuinely import fish.and some wholesalers wont have the time to buy smallish amounts of fish.and a lfs should give you more than a wholesaler would, which gets good fish to the lfs another way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ant Posted January 19, 2005 Share Posted January 19, 2005 Would be good if they did import cichlids but unfortunately i don't see it happeing in the short future (although they do import german stock sometimes i believe). Anthony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter_Gun_Riff Posted January 19, 2005 Author Share Posted January 19, 2005 they do that alot as far as i know they breed good quality stock over their but not enough is done to get them out and fixing ours up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ged Posted January 19, 2005 Share Posted January 19, 2005 I refer to the NSW Cichlid Society's species list for guidance on the availability of fish in Australia. The species list for 1997 includes the population in Australia but also includes a rating for genetic characteristic. They list only a few species with concerns. Have we moved so far away from this or is our understanding of the correct qualities and conformation of each species improved. IMO it is not just a matter of culling and looking at the parents. I believe that knowing the bloodlines within the species that you have assists greatly in the selection process of your breeders. Species List 1997 Gerard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ducksta Posted January 19, 2005 Share Posted January 19, 2005 IMO a brood of 14 should be culled to the top 10 etc or even the top 5,6,7 etc. their are alot more poor quality fish then their is top Q IMO if you have put in the effort early on to select the right breeders, a brood of 14 fry should yield 14 quality fish. Obviously culling needs to take place when the odd one creeps through but to suggest half the fish are crap automatically is a bit silly. This means there are less good quality fish available because perfectly good fish are culled - for what reason? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scienceman Posted January 19, 2005 Share Posted January 19, 2005 I'm not into breeding (yet), and also a newbie but was thinking that.... 1. it would seem that one of the problems is that breeders dont get to see their matured fry which is when it is best to evaluate quality, as adults or sub-adults. Perhaps keeping the first batch to maturity would give a good indication of the quality of the parents. It is always possible for recessive traits to come our that are not present in the parents and might be difficult to pick up in the fry! 2. I have read that there is quite a lot of natural variation in a single brood in line-bred fish, such as red rubin. These would have a stronger case for culling or checking on matured offspring. If I am off track here please be kind.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeWs Fish Posted January 19, 2005 Share Posted January 19, 2005 hmmm, so far I have only culled if there is an ovbvious deformity or something like that (like it is missing an eye). The other cases when i have culled is when a bigger fish has taken a large chunk out of its fins and it is having problems swimming. I've been churning out some beauties! With fish like demasoni (types of fish that can have sketchy bars) I havent seen any as yet but when i do, I plan to feed them off, or grow them up and use them as dithers. What other things are there to look for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phatoscarlover Posted January 20, 2005 Share Posted January 20, 2005 Hey guys, I reckon in Aus we dont do all that badly on our quality of fish. We dont have the problems of America or Europe which is that there hobby is so large there is nothing at all they can really do about. In Australia a large percentage of fish keepers are aware of these things (bent bars,bad head shape, kinked spines,bad markings,faint colour) the one thing that doesnt change country to country is that there will always be people producing what a serious hobbiest would call "sub quality" fish and its usually dirven by the $(comercial style farms) or being nieve(breeders who just dont know). Personlly if i buy fry and fish grow up and im not happy with them ill cull the lot and there are still alot of people who will do this. A freind in melbourne just recently has binned a whole batch of fish (wont say what cause the other guy will know what its is) cause they were NQR. The other guy he went halves with sold them back to an aquairum so he could get his $30 purcahse price back and now there is 15 or so crossed fish coming from a fish shop which could be added to a few colonies or start there own colony and you start to pollute the pure bloodlines, some say your cruel to cull a fish that is happy and healthy simply due to its genetic makeup but i disagree. Cheers Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter_Gun_Riff Posted January 20, 2005 Author Share Posted January 20, 2005 IMO if you have put in the effort early on to select the right breeders, a brood of 14 fry should yield 14 quality fish. Obviously culling needs to take place when the odd one creeps through but to suggest half the fish are crap automatically is a bit silly. This means there are less good quality fish available because perfectly good fish are culled - for what reason? but like i said before it takes time to sourse top Q fish and if the brood throws 14 quality fish culling to 10 etc would help the lines as only the top fish are getting through the process but once the quality is good their is no need for culling but IMO at the moment its need for some species Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ducksta Posted January 20, 2005 Share Posted January 20, 2005 PGR, what your saying sounds ridiculous to me. Those extra fish from good parents NEED to circulate! If I have a GREAT colony of fish, and only keep the top 50% of fry to distribute, even though 80-90% are 'perfect', that is a waste of quality fish. Your argument is that there isnt enough quality fish around, so by culling more good fish, the problem gets solved? Please share how your logical processes leads to this conclusion? In more detail than just saying 'responsible breeders should cull 50% or more of fry' which is what I keep getting from your posts. If your argument was that bad fish should never be bred, and all fry are culled from crap parents, that might have some semblance of sense. And I would agree with you. But you want to limit the availablity of the better quality stock by killing more of them - how is this ristrciting the circulation of poorer quality fish? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter_Gun_Riff Posted January 20, 2005 Author Share Posted January 20, 2005 but once the quality is good their is no need for culling but IMO at the moment its need for some species what i said was culling of the lower quality fish is need to get the better quality fish and i said 4 out of 14 so if yo have some poor quality fish you wont cull them back to improve what gets out If your argument was that bad fish should never be bred isnt that what the post is about keeping the poor quality fish away but culling our wires are x'ed somewere Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danpri Posted January 20, 2005 Share Posted January 20, 2005 I don't know where I heard this but 'someone' said that possibly our tank bred Cichlids are becoming more aggro than wild caught due to our constant selectively breeding with the most dominant males? Can anyone expand on this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted January 20, 2005 Share Posted January 20, 2005 Danpri I dont know if thats true because in the wild the most dominate male gets the girl, regardless of quality. We tend to, weather its right or not, pick the most perfect fish to breed. I know with my flavus the dominate fish is not the best of my two males, but he is the dominate fish and he gets the prize. There is nothig wrong with my male, he has no deformities, and has good baring and colour, but the second in charge is just abit better. I believe if I let the second dominate fish breed then I am, in thoery, breeding a less agressive fish. Thats a of course if you believe that agression is inherited from parents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r.d.m Posted January 20, 2005 Share Posted January 20, 2005 possibly a far more serious situation is happening with the new world cichlids you "afrophiles" still have stocks of purebred unadulterated fish and discussion such as this will reinforce the situation as you are responsible people with sound theories,in contrast to this us suckers on the dark side have been under attack from sinister forces and have had such abberations as blood parrots and flowerhorns foisted on us(not to mention goggle eyed blue acaras) the result being its now nearly impossible to buy an american confident in the fact that it is what its meant to be , in the very near future the situation will occur when someone will have a lovely pair of severums , breed them , and to his horror produce hideous monstrosities , so to you african lovers i say ; save yourselves while theres still time, oh well theres always catfish! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YeW Posted January 22, 2005 Share Posted January 22, 2005 Hi - I agree with most of what Ducksta has said: Here's a two points I've made before which I'll go over here again as I think they are relevant. Almost no one (relatively speaking, there are some good folk who do this, apologies for tarring here guys & gals) selects the best quality male to breed with their african rift lake cichlids. Most breeders buy 6-8 fish and grow them up to breed. The first male to colour up (the alpha male) is used (by default) by these breeders for breeding. A few complaints with this system: not all males are equal.... and the first one to colour up definately ISNT always the best. Pick your males very carefully guys and gals - the female cichlids would in the lake, but they have little choice in your aquarium. In my opinion by not "selecting" males we are inadvertantly line breeding for two characters: size and aggression. Colour being of less importance. There is good stock of most fish still (as Duck and others have said) you just need to hunt about for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colfish Posted January 23, 2005 Share Posted January 23, 2005 hi all i've read through all these opinions. each one has some good points. PGF, you've kicked the ball in right direction. i also believe a lot of our fish are in dire need of attention. the average mums & dads go to the lfs to buy the kids some fish. [this is great] but they would'nt know good from bad. [they don't really need too] they only want a tank full of fish to look at. but maybe one of the kids gets serious about the fish and wants to go big time. this is where the problems begin,[ they know no better] i had my head in the clouds when i first started.[i'll be brief] i wanted to have a collection of ''peacocks", the competion at the auctions was high, but i was intent on this species. i bought, i grew them up and finaly began breeding. i thought they were great, untill a particular person asked me 'what are these things'. i was devistated, all cross bred rubbish. so i dumped this idea and ventured to other species, to this day i keep approx 30 various species and varients, happy with the quality being produced, although some species do need to watched very closely and culled hard, to the point that i've had none to pass on to other people. [after 14yrs of breeding and exhiberting show quality birds, i have learnt to be hard.] if you want to breed quality stock you need to find the best stock available and work on from there. it maybe blood sweat and tears, but you will gain a rep. for good stock too learn what good stock looks like is difficult, you can search the 'net', but you usually see what others breed, good or bad? you can find some pics of wild stock,[although first hand opinion and pics of some species, suggest we're doing well] so we are left scientific descriptions and pics of wild caught stock to study. at the risk of decapitation i'll say IMHO too many people treat this hobby as a 10min wonder, when they tire of it, they leave a lot of undesirable fish about, which find there way to lfs and the cycle is perpetuated. i'm not on my soapbox, so i can't get off it, this is my creed cheers all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YeW Posted January 23, 2005 Share Posted January 23, 2005 Little Swimmer: I dont know if thats true because in the wild the most dominate male gets the girl, regardless of quality. That's false - otherwise the males wouldnt be coloured . Females select a male based on his colours... though I agree non-dominant males have lwo colour, females in the lake have the choice of muliply coloured dominant males. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trofius Posted January 23, 2005 Share Posted January 23, 2005 I think if you want to be serious about breeding fish than you need to get a look at the parent (and not just a photo), and their parents. I realise that this will be hard from a lfs as they get their fish mostly from wholesalers, but hopefully they are doing the right thing by the hobby. The main reason for this is ensuring quality because there is the hidden fact of genetics, and what it can mean for future generations. If you have a batch of fish that are producing say 75% near perfect fry then there is still 25% that are not as good. ok so you cull them problem solved........NO........ if your fish are constantly producing subquality fry then i would assume that there is a problem with the parents or grandparents. sometimes a genetic flaw doesnt show up in every generation. or it takes two fish carrying the same (unseen) flaw to breed to actually show that flaw, as it may be a resesive trait. Usually this will be exposed by breeding sibling together, but then there is the imbreeding issue again. I know it can be very difficult to find good quality fish, but just a question how many times is too many for fish to be linebred/inbred etc. I think another problem even if you can get imported fish there usually isnt a great deal of them, and there will allways be imbreeding within the initial stock that was introduced to the country. Here is qld I am still searching for another bloodline for my lepto Kitumbas, but no matter were i see them, or who has em it allways traces back to the same two people, whom i guess got them from the original source???? Anyone else noticed this phenominon with rarer fish???? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cichlabxr Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 I haven't heard mention yet of Mendel's theories of dominant and recessive genes. I do know there are many books on the breeding of fish and his theories are covered in them. Certain species we have here have definite "bad traits" to be aware of. Unfortunately a lot of these problems don't appear until the fish have reached semi-maturity or later. Did we breed them into the fish or did they come with them "from the wild". Just because we bring a fish in "new" doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't have problems in its "gene pool" What traits are we looking to breed into our fish? When breeding dogs, people line breed because they know what they are getting mostly. The breeders I know are generally looking at dogs that have a common great grandparent or grandparent in common. But I also know that father/daughter, brother/sister does go on. It gives them the opportunity to set the traits or characteristics they are after. This hopefully makes it easier to replicate them in future generations. Unfortunately it sometimes gives you traits you don't want and these are then very hard to lose or remove. With dogs you can have the progeny spayed but you can't do that with fish. You could of course place them in "display only" tanks. Also in line breeding with dogs you get to see if your dogs carry a health problem you didn't know about. Therefore the key is to be honest with the problems in the lines you are breeding. You can then work on removing these problems but this entails a lot of time and in the case of fish "tank space". Again with dogs According to geneticists. Line-breeding can be carried on for many many generations without harmful effects on the line or breed as long as the individuals involved have few hidden genetic disorders I can't remember where I got that from, sorry. How many of us are prepared to start a breeders registry,keeping records of parents,grandparents etc. I also believe it would require people to specialize and be prepared to grow on their own fish or maybe only sell them to people prepared to assist in the program. This is a very complex area and we have to be aware of our own subjective views. These are mine expressed in this post. Which traits are probably controlled by one gene? Which traits are probably controlled by many genes? Are any traits dominant? Regards Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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