If I mix Albino with Normal

[Chuckmeister]

Well thamks for clearing that up, boots I have watched you guys, including a few others that have readi this post and wondered why you haven't posted and with this information haven't cleared this up earlier. If the fish have been bred with common bristlenose the concern is a moot issue.

[Gav]

glad that is all sorted now, people can get off their high horses and put away the soap boxes

[griffin]

edit - So Jess you are saying that it would be OK to cross these albinos with my Orange Spots being just another bristlenose. I guess I'm being so steadfast because with all the new fish coming in there are also new catfish coming in as well. The orange spot is an example. To so flippantly disregard the albino and lump it in a general bag kinda annoys me.

Ummm....where have I said that? In fact where have I said - "to hell with it, let's just hybridise anything with the name BN in it?" I have simply put forward some food for thought regarding aspects of this argument - playing devil's advocate if you will, because some of the arguments people are using for various points are not so cut and dried.

Orange spot BN, despite having "BN" in their common name, are quite obviously not the same species as our common BN. Of course breeding them together would be blatant hybridising. No I am not suggesting anyone does it. It "kinda annoys me" when people make sensationalist digs at me along these lines.

For me Dark Morelia has hit the nail on the head with:

I am against breeding our normal BN with albino BNs if they are not the same pure species or sub-species.

But the thing is, nobody knows what species and or subspecies either normals or albinos are, or even if either or both are hybrid stock which is entirely possible if not downright probable.

If both are conclusively proven to be the same species, or both to be hybrid strains, then outcrossing can only do good.

Our common BN here are just like our 6 bar fronts (no known location and no idea if the originals came from different locations, and been linebred in tanks for features that many wild fronts don't have) . No-one knows what strain they are and they have most likely been hybridised over the years - they are a melting pot of a bunch of unidentified BN strains and/or species. This has been debated and discussed on the Auscat forum, and overseas people seem to have similar situations with their local populations of common BN - anyone interested in this issue should have a trawl through Auscat and Planetcat forums for threads on this.

Oh and just on the note on all albinos being genically weak. I steadfastly disagree. people seem to lump all albinos in this box. Look at albino zebra's (cichlid) they would be one of the strongest,most agressive and prolific breeders there are. Genetically weak...I dont think so. What about albino Oscars. With my albino dimis its my belief that they are weak because they are bred in asia in asian water that is sterilized. When they hit aussie water they cant cope and die. I believe if they can get bred in local conditions that there resilience will improve. I say this to indicate that you cant paint everything with the same stick.

I did say in my post that there are examples of extremely inbred lines being viable. It doesn't mean forever though. Genetic diversity is needed to cope with unforeseen problems down the track. Highly inbred lines - no matter how wonderfully fertile they've been for years - would have much less chance of coping with catastrophe (especially a new disease - inbreeding reduces immune variation markedly). Now as for those dimis - why do you think they keep and breed them in "sterile" water in the first place? It's because they are a highly inbred, weak strain and susceptible to infections etc. They will only survive as an aquarium strain if they are outcrossed to normal healthy dimis to get some immune variation back into them.

BTW - no-one is clear at all on what orange-spot BN are. They don't match up well enough with any of the L-numbers on planetcat (which seems about as reliable source as we have for IDing loricariids, they use and compare/point our irregularities even between Aqualog and DATZ). There's a good chance they're hybrids too.........because of ALL of this (including the above arguments) I don't keep orange spot BN, nor albino BN - I have no interest in these because they are far too "grey-area" and I don't think there will ever be enough proof to be sure of what to do with them.

Oh - and the same goes for peppermints! No-one's agreed conclusively on what species we have here, and as there are so many L-numbers that look like peppermints (and yet "ours" doesn't seem to 100% match any of them) do we again have a hybrid hodge-podge on our hands? The catchers and importers of loricariids usually don't care too much about specific locations and correct identification of what is being imported, or are dealing with L-numbers that can easily be mistaken for others as their colouration can change dramatically depending on stress, aquarium conditions etc. Mistakes are not only easily made, but they are made all the time. So for myself, I would only be interested in putting effort into those L-numbers that can be easily identified.

I keep and occasionally breed common BN as my own personal team of algae cleaners for the tanks - except for my early more naive days of fishkeeping, I have never thought of them as "pure" species or strain.

Cheers,

Jess

[mezzacam]

Well before this discussion i didn't even know there were seprate species of Bristlenose I thought a Bristlenose was a bristlenose. As i have never looked up much about them..

I'm with Jess, I've only ever used them as my Algae clean up team.

As for all the albino talk. I agree that DM has hit the nail on the head.

[wormboy]

Gee I'm glad that was cleared up!

Just one thing, and please feel free to shoot me down as I am not a genetecist.

As an ecologist / biologist / taxonomist I have always been under the impression that the criteria for a species was that the population the organisms can a:interbreed and b:produce fertile offspring."

I know that a problem is encountered when you consider rift lake cichlids but that is another discussion and one that has been held ad nauseum.

Given the previous criteria, if albinos and normal BN are different species and they are crossed, then the offspring, if any survive in the first place, should be infertile and the hybrid strain should die out by itself (such as the case with a mule) Conversely, if they are fertile then they should be considered sub-species of the same species. I think therefore, to an extent, this problem is self regulating in that populations of crossed animals whose parents are not of the same species will die out of there own accord.

Furthermore, given that a great proportion of the aquarium strains we have around the world today are sub-species, hybrids, and mutants (take discus as a prime example but also apistos, rift lake cichlids etc.) which do not occurr in the wild, I ask, where would the aquarium industry be without such crosses such as the one suggested in this thread.

In saying all this, please do not get me wrong, I do not condone the random crossing of any old fish with any other, it must be done with a purpose in mind (such as the strengthening of the gene pool or the creation of a colour variant) and it must be done cautiously and with much consideration (such as this thread). I also whole heartedly believe that "pure" strains must be maintained as well, but if it means that they are so pure that there is no genetic diversity, they are likely to suffere a catastrophic demise through breeders being over pedantic!

I think the concept of and "aquarium strain" was brought up in a prevoius post and I think it is an important one. These fish are already likely (not positively) to be aquarium strains which bear very little genetic resembelance to wild strains (likely we have already created our own species through artificual selection), so where then is the problem in creating a new aquarium strain from the already highly modified stock strains.

There, that is my two cents worth, its a bit of a jumbleof concepts but it matches my thought patterns. It is not meant to be inflamatory to those who already are inflamed, just to weigh into the debate. Please, nobody take offence to MHO.

-worm-

PS please don't do yourself an injury getting mad over something that happens as a product of natural selection in the wild!

[YeW]

Hi Guys -

I'm disappointed with this statement by Chuck:

"I cant stand hypocracy."

I cant stand hypocrisy either LOL!, not even when it's spelt right . I'm also disappointed when people (and yes, I'm referring to you Charlie and others) can't make their points without name-calling.

Where is the hypocrisy here? No one here is saying it is good to hybridise two DIFFERENT species.

Indeed, no one has said that they ARE two different species.

Actually, what little evidence we have (and we have very little) suggests they are either the same species (or both of mixed ancestory and/or heavily inbred/linebred).

I dont think at this point there's a lot of harm in mixing the two - plenty of folk are maintaining the albinos alone also . If the fry they produce are infertile it would lend some strength to the arguement that they are different species (so in a sense, it would be a very good test).

I also agree with Jess on a number of fronts. 1. These aren't cichlids - so the same rules of intergeneric/interspecies hybrid fertility may not apply. The same risk does not apply to other locariids either which are obviously morphologically distinct. 2. No one, not a soul, not a single member, guest or postee has said "EVERY albino fish line is weak". What has been said though, and rightly so is that often albino lines are highly inbred (herein lies the problem ).

I've said I'll attempt to distinguish the two by morphological means . IF someone supplies me with some stock to work from .

[Brett4Perth]

Since this thread has generated such informed discussion and "worm" has raised the issue of "What is a species?" I wonder if anyone could expand on this for me.

There have been suggestions for DNA testing. Is there a Definition of a species on the basis of DNA testing? Like ... contains 99% or more of the same DNA. Where do you draw the line in the sand?

I thought the definition based on inter-breeding refered to natural populations, not artificial situations like fish tanks.

Cheers

Brett

[Chuckmeister]

Dave - maybe you can proof read all future posts for me. I dont recall calling anyone any names though I would suggest re-reading your first post. I believe that is where the topic starts to fall.

I'd also like to throw into this, and this was assuming that the albino currently here were not already crossed back and were unidentified as much of this discussion was based on. This is a snippit (?sp Dave) of a post boots put up earlier..

Barbie replies.......

You are correct, albino bred to albino should throw only albino fry. The problem with this in albino ancistrus is that there are two or three different species kicking around that are albino. When you cross the two species, queeR, you get brown fry. There is also a "gold" ancistrus with dark eyes that looks like albino ancistrus, in all ways but the eyes. Those too will throw dark fry when crossed with an albino strain.

Basically he's creating hybrids, but in the common bristlenose, it's probably going to be difficult to make sure you aren't unless they're all purchased from the same source, IMO.

Barbie

This would lead to believe that there are different albino species and this person could actually crossi albino/albino together to make a hybrid. Which made ID'ing the one here even more valid. In any event the question as I've said is a moot issue.

I've said the whole time that this is an ID issue. Not an albino issue but an ID issue.

Jess - my appologies for a poorly written responce. I mis-read the last line or two on your reply and all of my edit except the first question were meant as a comment, not directed.

Personally I've run out of steam on this thread.. My appologies to any upset....and I'll catch you in another

[YeW]

Hi -

DNA testing (such as comparisons of DNA sequences conserved genes eg: 18S rDNA/cytochromes? etc) might be a useful way to approach locariid and other fish taxonomy (in addition to morphological methods).

It's expensive though - I certainly have the skills I do lots of PCR (a way of amplifying bits of DNA) every day - but I dont have the money nor the time.

Charlie -

For the most part I think everyone was well behaved in this thread. My problem with your post (and others) arose (not because of the spelling LOL! - we all make those and I only noticed it when I'd put it in a quote) but because of the inferrence that other authors were being hypocritical (which I dont believe we are) and because of the somewhat sensationalist (to steal Jess's term) comments about orange spots.

Hope there isnt any hard feelings about this .

Dave.