Inter Breeding

[gino123456]

Hi all just wondering will electric yellows and salousi will they interbreed if the are in the same tank.

[KIMO]

There is always a possibility with any Mbuna, especially if the colours and genus are similar.....

A large dominant male E.yellow may easily interbreed with a female Salousi as the body shape and colouration are very similar.

[fongyfong]

hey wats wrong with interbreeding why is it such a not a good thing?

[pride]

think he means cross breeding. Both aren't a good thing for different reasons.

[fongyfong]

think he means cross breeding. Both aren't a good thing for different reasons.

can you tell me the reasons curious

[Josh]

Cross breeding of fish in this country is frowned upon, to put it nicely.

Fish species should be kept pure. We have a problem in Australia getting any Cichlid species here, No Mbuna are on the allowable import list and as a consequence new Mbuna stock is very expensive. If you were to cross a Electric Yellow with a Salousi you would make a non pure species that may look Identical to the one of the parent fish.

Inter breeding will do nothing but weaken the bloodline of a fish and leads to problems like white Electric yellows or extremely poor barred fish like most of the Salousi that are around today

[oakes]

Cross breeding of fish in this country is frowned upon, to put it nicely.

Fish species should be kept pure. We have a problem in Australia getting any Cichlid species here, No Mbuna are on the allowable import list and as a consequence new Mbuna stock is very expensive. If you were to cross a Electric Yellow with a Salousi you would make a non pure species that may look Identical to the one of the parent fish.

Inter breeding will do nothing but weaken the bloodline of a fish and leads to problems like white Electric yellows or extremely poor barred fish like most of the Salousi that are around today

Re cross breeding - I agree. Death to all hybrids!

Re interbreeding (read inbreeding) - I also agree, indiscriminate and prolonged inbreeding will result in inferior fish. However selective inbreeding (linebreeding) can improve a strain if properly planned, and is sometimes the only option with rare species of fish (or other captive animals).

[AlexJordan]

A little more detail about the consequences of inbreeding:

When fish are bred with close relatives, there is a greater chance that deleterious alleles (meaning 'bad' forms of a gene) will come together from both parents and be expressed in the offspring. Usually, these bad alleles are hidden from view (not expressed) because a functioning version of the gene comes from one of the parents and is dominant. However, when breeding with close relatives, there is a greater chance that both the parents will have an identical bad allele, in which case the offspring have a 25% chance of inheriting both of these bad alleles, and if they do, they will show some negative consequence depending on what the gene codes for.

When you breed over and over with close kin, the resultant offspring show a wide range of deformities due to these bad combinations, a phenomenon called inbreeding depression. However, this does not always mean that the population will deteriorate. Once all the deleterious alleles have been purged, there are very few effects of breeding with close kin - this is why fish that have been in the trade for a long time, guppies etc, show very few impacts of inbreeding depression, and also why animals like Cheetahs can survive at population numbers below those viable for other animals - because most of the bad forms of the genes have already been purged by a period of inbreeding depression.

Anyway, don't crossbreed your fish, it just makes them look like

[Rod54]

Interesting subject...

Cross breeding cichlids is heavily frowned on by most hobbyists in Australia....although some famous Asian crossbreeds are Parrot cichlids and Flowerhorns

Cross breeding guppies.....Poecilia endler/reticulata is an artform

Cross breeding Siamese fighters is also common practise in Thailand.(there is 5 different species of betta that are similar to Betta splendens)

It's not so much that cross breeding is wrong....It's crossbreeding without any plan and selling the fry as something that they are not that is the crime.

Personally......I prefer fish the way they evolved in Nature.

but I do have some endler hybrids???

[oakes]

I'm curious to know how the heck those people in Thailand for example know what they are buying or selling given that they are regularly crossbreeding up to 5 similar species. 'Pure' examples must be pretty rare.

[Rod54]

I'm curious to know how the heck those people in Thailand for example know what they are buying or selling given that they are regularly crossbreeding up to 5 similar species. 'Pure' examples must be pretty rare.

Pure examples of "wild" types bettas are readily available as there is not a Big market for them....cross breeding occurs in the production of "Fighting" fish....ie those used in traditional fighting contests. and for the "fancy" breeds(halfmoon,dragons,etc)....which are so far away from "wild" ancestors it isn't relavent....most people buying fighters are buying a pretty fish with long fins they can keep in a small bowl....the purity of the genetics is totally irrelavent.

Thai's have been breeding bettas for centuries.....and supply the world market with fancy types....majority know what they are doing....their livelyhood depends on it!