Edmonton auction fish

[seajays]

It was lot # 288-13 Fire Fin Peacock

[RD.]

John ......... at that size it's impossible to say with any certainty. The best bet is to see the parents of your juvies, and short of that you'll have to grow them out, and go from there.

This is why when one is considering breeding (for resale) it's so important to know the lineage of the fish. A bag at an auction with blue this, or yellow that, doesn't really tell you much as far as the quality, or sometimes even the strain/variant of the parents.

If you have no intention of passing on any future fry, then no worries.

[dunl]

RD, it's possible that there are pure Otter Points around the province, I just haven't seen anything to convince me of that yet. Albert has also stated that the jacobfreibergi that Gold had in stock was a watered down strain as well, and he wasn't impressed with the quality of what was around either.

As for those pictured, it's too early to tell from them - a picture of the male they came from would be helpful.

[RD.]

dunl ........ I never said there was. As a matter of fact, I said pretty much the opposite.

Also, some of these farm fish strains have been bred for 25+ years now, so the fact that a species shows up, doesn't necessarily mean it's from a breeding group of fish that were recently imported. Nor does it mean that they are always as pure as some of us would like to think.

The fact of the matter is, Laif has a large number of wild caught A. jacob Otter Point listed for sale at the moment, so it appears that they do in fact surface from time to time, at least on exporters lists.

As far as being pure, looks alone will never prove how pure a strain is, you need to see a few generations of the offspring (and in some cases many generations) before you can say with any certainty how 'pure' the parents are.

IMO this has become a real problem in recent years.

The problem is that once a fish is line bred, there's no telling what was used in that line breeding program. In many cases the fish do end up becoming hybrids, as unrelated species are used to introduce a certain trait. This is in fact how most albinos on the market came to be. Another good example is the yellow lab crosses that have been showing up over the past 2 years. I had a male that I could have easily passed off as being pure, and once introduced to a serious line breeding program no one would have ever been the wiser. It may have taken several generations to fix certain traits, but it could have been done, and every last offspring from that group would have been crosses.

Some of these strains took over 10 years to develop to the point that they are 99% pure, but in the end they are all developed from cross breeding.

Here's a past comment from Brett (Fogelhund) that shows just how easily this can happen.

Unfortunately, logic isn't always at play when it comes to genetics. Throwbacks do not necessarily come out with every spawn, or even every generation. There has been ZERO known OB's from a Malawian Haplochromis or Aulonocara.

Case and point. About 12 years ago, I was breeding some Scieanochromis freyeri, and a very nice strain I might add. I had an albino group, and a regular group that were Albino Siblings.

The Albino group threw 100% Albino "freyeri". The Regular group had one female that would throw about 25% albino, and the rest regular, with the other females all throwing regular fry. I have VHS video of these fish, and they were some of the nicest looking freyeri you have ever seen.

I bred these fish for four years, and likely sold several thousand fry. One spawn, one of the fish looked a little odd.... stripes. Once it was to 3/4", there was no mistaking that it looked like a pure little Auloncara fry..... strange thing, I hadn't kept any Aulonocara in about five years at that point. So, I had an Aulonocara baby from my prized "freyeri"... what a downer A couple of months later, the albino "freyeri" through a normal coloured "Aulonocara".

In four years, and some 2500-3000 fry, I had TWO "Aulonocara"... that was the end of that strain for me right there... fry got fed off to some Champsochromis, and the adults were never stripped again.

Here's a thread by Brett thst shows his breeder male from that group, one that he assumed was 'pure'.

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=91129

This is why when Freshmike recently posted pics of his 'pure' albino S. fryeri offspring, and showed a pic of the 'pure' male breeder, I raised my eyebrows.

As far as albinos, check this out:

http://www.cichlidlovers.com/p_cherry_red_ob_a.htm

now scroll down on this page & you'll see the same fish. (the exact same fish)

http://www.cichlidnewsmagazine.com/issues/...l/whatsnew.html

Note that Laif even states that it was developed in Florida. I don't blame the breeders in FL (I happen to know one of them very well), to them this is business, and I don't know of any of these breeders who have attempted to ever pass these fish off as pure. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about some of the smaller hobby breeders, some whom have no clue what they are doing, and will pass off anything as 'pure' just to make a quick buck.

Many people happen to like these strains, which is fine by me, same as the OB peacocks, but the chances of any of them being 100% pure, is almost zero.

Pablo released the OB Red Zebra strain over 10 years ago, and at the time won 2nd place for the Breeder Award at the FTFFA. That same year he won first place for his Syno multies.

The albino OB red zebra is also a strain that he developed.

This is always a touchy subject for some people, and for good reason.

Pretty much all of the fish in Malawi, are in a sense, crosses themselves. Some of these crosses may have taken place thousands of years ago, but that's how all of these species in the Rift Lakes were originally developed. Today, there is new evidence that cross breeding is still taking place in the wild, and new species are being discovered from the result of these crosses.

DNA tests have confirmed these studies findings, such as the example below.

Hybrid origin of a cichlid population in Lake Malawi: implications for genetic variation and species diversity Peter F. Smith*, Ad Konings and Irv Kornfield

I've read that report in full, and I'm sure that many purist types would be alarmed by it.

So, one has to ask themselves, is a cross in a tank, anymore a hybrid than a cross in the lake? If a pair of 'pure' yellow labs throw a few white belly morphs, are they hybrids, are the parents hybrids? I don't think so, they simply carry a recessive gene that surfaces from time to time (due to massive inbreeding) that only came about because man (Pierre Brichard) forced two wild fish to breed in captivity. From that moment on, there was a huge genetic drift that took place in that species.

Same thing I suppose with S. fryeri, how many of the fish in the hobby are truly 'pure', when most of them are crosses between several locations? I don't have the answer, I'm simply asking the question.

When a quality breeder creates an albino, it will take YEARS to develop, with some taking over a decade before they are released to the public, with those fish carrying 99%+ 'pure' genes. When a sloppy breeder creates an albino, those same fish might be released in under a year, with god only knowing what their genetic make up is.

That's the problem we face today. There are very few people that will spend 10 years or more working on deveoping a new strain, because the money is just not there. This is something one does for self satisfaction, not monetary gains. I only know of one person who has gone to these lengths to ensure that each fish released, is as pure, or in some cases, more pure than fish found in the wild. Are they crosses, absolutely, are they as 'pure' as some of the fish found in the wild, yep.

So I guess the question is how does one define hybrid?

I won't pretend that I have the answer to that question, I'll leave that up

to the eggspurts to decide.

BTW - the comments above are in no way an endorsement for hybrids or cross breeding. I'm simply stating some of the facts that surround what's taken place in the past, and what is stll taking place today, with many breeders/hobbyists never being the wiser.

[dunl]

dunl ........ I never said there was. As a matter of fact, I said pretty much the opposite.

Whoops, read it the wrong way. Sorry `bout that!

Good post, lots of great info in there.

[Sammy]

Howdy,

I did grab a couple of those firefins almost ayear ago from a guy named Marlon here in edmonton. He stated that some dude in Calgary got these in from another dude in germany which was breeding them from a eureka x otterpoint of somesort. Anyways I was asking about them on another forum back then because I suspected that marlon was full of ****. Turns out he is full up to his eyeballs, I have yet to find another person in edmonton or Calgary who has ever heard of marlons secret fish other then the few people that got them from him. I would have to say they are most likey a little soupy, Nice looking fish but still soupy to me. I am growing out a few of them right now to put one in the show tank. I have nothing against the selective bred ie... Ruby's, Super Red Emps, eureka's, I have kept them all for show tanks not to breed. If you bred a Aulonocara jacobfreibergi (Undu Reef) and Aulonocara jacobfreibergi (Hongi Is.) is that not considerd Hybrid? or selective bred? I would think it is hybrid. Just because they are in the same family group (Aulonocara) doesnt make it selective does it? I thought selective is like picking the best looking strongest male of the species and hooking him up with the best looking female you could find ie... some females may have slight hues of color to them and some females also may have nicer finnage patterns/colors in them. I have alittle saying that i try to follow (Believe NONE of what you hear and only HALF of what you see) anything is possible.

Ciao for now,

Sammy

[RD.]

Thanks for the info Sammy.

If you bred a Aulonocara jacobfreibergi (Undu Reef) and Aulonocara jacobfreibergi (Hongi Is.) is that not considerd Hybrid? or selective bred?

I guess that depends on who you ask, but in my books it certainly wouldn't be what I consider to be a pure strain. Keep in mind that many of these species have been reclassified over the years, so the fact that a fish is classified as a jacobfreibergi today, doesn't mean it will remain that way forever. Cross breeding geographical variants is never a good idea.

BTW - here's the male A. jacobfreibergi "fire fin" in question.