I would like to know why we should or why we should NOT cross breed cichlids?
kimmy

Geelite, you may not know it, but you have just
opened Pandora's Box!

Basically, and I mean basically, if you're interested in
breeding for sale, then obviously, you want your stock
to be the purest and highest quality possible!

If you don't plan on selling them and know that the offspring
will never leave your tank, not even to a friends tank, then it
won't make any difference!

Hybrids coming into the hobby through people selling them to
pet stores and unscrupulous breeders is what makes this hobby
disappointing.

Think about it; you pay top dollar for what you think is a pure bred
fish and you raise that fish up a while only to discover that it is a hybrid.

I'm sure others will join in soon and put their 2 cents worth in too!

So be prepared for an array of opinions!

kimmy NO!!!! yikes

For one like PB stated...

Hybrids coming into the hobby through people selling them to
pet stores and unscrupulous breeders is what makes this hobby
disappointing.

Think about it; you pay top dollar for what you think is a pure bred
fish and you raise that fish up a while only to discover that it is a hybrid.

#2 is you can get a mix of undesirable traits. i.e. bars, aggression and deformaties.

Also not to mention...The lakes are getting smaller and the more "pure" fish that stay in a hobbiest tanks will be like a preserve/conservation of each species.

Those are my top reasons for not cross breeding, I'm sure everyone else has their reasons.

if you were to ask the same question on cichlid forum you'd hear many tirades. the cichlid haven crowd sn a little more polite about their opinions, except they like to pick on derek a lot. so you'll get a lot more polite answers. I basically agreed with everything that preacherboy said, but wait more answers will come.

I would refer to those discussions as educational, rather than tirades! Giggly

As preacherboy and cturner have so eloquently stated, it's a touchy subject.

I believe you were discussing setting up a fish room for breeding, geelite, if I'm not mistaken???

So, the answer to this question is very important to you!

Hybrids that are represented as anything other than hybrids are frowned upon in the cichlid hobby.

If you can insure that any hybrids you produce or raise will NEVER be sold as anything BUT hybrids, it isn't a problem. But in reality, you can't do that. You can't control what the LFS does when it labels the tank of fish that you sell them.

I once saw a tank full of my beautiful pure M. callainos at at LFS labeled as "Ice Blue" cichlids. "Ice Blue" is the common name for M. greshakei. Can you imagine the confusion this could cause?

What if you sold a clutch of hybrids to the LFS and that LFS decided to put an eye catching name on these fish, but the name just happened to be one of the common names used for another true species in the hobby? 5 people come in at different times and buy these hybrid juveniles, they grow them out and start breeding them, believing they have a pure true species, and sell them as such. It's the snowball effect, and it's going to have a negative effect on cichlid conservation.

The flowerhorn and parrot fish are known hybrids in the hobby. They don't scare me one bit...I have EBJD, that may or may not be hybrids, but I knew this before I got them. They are amazing fish, but have a lot of health issues, and are quite expensive and delicate.

What scares me is the Yellow lab / red zebra cross that looks just like a nicely coloured yellow lab. I've had a bad experience with them. I bought a group of Yellow labs, simply for the colour they added to the tank. They grew up and turned out to be really nice looking Yellow labs, very intense yellow, and nice strong black on the fins...Some of the nicest ones I've ever seen. Their features were perfect, and I had no reason to suspect any problems at all with them, until one clutch was born that I finally put in a grow out tank to raise and sell. (The others had been spit in the main tank and eaten.)

About a month into growing them out, half the clutch started to take on a deep orange / yellow colouring and were showing no black whatsoever. The other half looked exactly like miniatures of their parents. The crossbreeding didn't occur in my tanks - there were no red or orange fish in sight. What I had was a result of a crossbreeding way back down the line, to the point that I couldn't even see it in my adults, but it was there, none the less.

I paid for pure Yellow labs, but that isn't what I got. I culled the entire group, fry and adults.

When I pay for something, I expect to get what I pay for. This is why I only deal with breeders and importers with an excellent reputation. And this is why it's important to develop a reputation just like that if you intend to breed! Good Job

So, to me, it's all about educating yourself in cichlid conservation and showing a sense of "responsibility" to the hobby.

Now, yodahorn, was that a tirade??? Giggly

Kim

no it was very well put (more of a sermon than a tirade On the Floor Laughing )as are your responses on CF, but sometimes CF posters tend to get carried away on the subject though the moderators do a go job of refereeing.

Oh goody, I get to play the Devil's advocate here. heres looking at you

I had an "accident" happen once, I had a male A. jacobfrebergi "Eureka Red" that spawned with a "sunshine" female. I didnt know the female wasnt a eureka until the fry began to color up. They were beautiful, but full on hybrids. I have a aquantance that line breeds several breeds of hybrid peacocks..."Golden Sunshines"..."Strawberry" and hat he calls "Excelsior" peacocks. He took the entire spawn. The "Excelsior" peacocks are a mix of albino German reds and the "Golden Sunshines". I will try and get a pic if I can, but imagine a fish with a albino background, and golden sheen covering the whole fish. I told you all of this to say...he sells these fish as hybrids. People who buy them know they are buying hybrids, and they buy just about all he can produce. Now I dont advocate the production of hybrids for mass production. But he takes great care in not selling any females of these fish. All you can buy from him is "show" males. He has an awsome show tank full of these amazing metalic peacocks. And he dosnt advertise, its all word of mouth. He might sell 20 or 30 3 to 4 inch long fish a month. But thats because he grows them out to make sure no females leave his facility.

I have no bones to pick with someone who is up front with the fact that they are seling hybrids. If someone wants to buy hybrids, at least the hybrids should come from someone who has some morals about it. We are facing the future prospects of all animals being outlawed for the pet trade. PETA is trying to get legislation passed that would ban the import of any living thing (including fish) for the pet trade. Eventualy there may only be "tank raised" fish for sale. If these laws get passed, we might all be buying "hybrids" as there wont be any fresh blood for people to add into their breeding colonies. I have posted in the past about getting to the point where we are faced with buying fish from some black market profiteer out of the back of his car at midnight in some parking lot. If the laws get passed, that may become a reality. And like cturner stated, the lakes are getting "smaller". With the human equation added to the already dwindling biotope in the great lakes region, the "pure" or WC fish may be harder and harder to get and breed.

So to answer your question yodahorn, if you want to breed hybrids and/or sell them...just be up front and honest about the fish. And dont let uneducated hobbiests propiagte your bloodlines. Because the person you sell them to may not be as scrupilous as you are.

And just so that any of you "dinosaurs" out there are reading this and shaking your colletive heads at me...I am not advocting the production and selling of hybrids. I am just a realist and can see the horizon as someone who is in Law Enforcment and Animal Control. We are facing possible legislation proposed by people who are convinced all animals should be left in the wild and not tamed and kept as pets and/or eaten. So just know that is where these people and their associations ould take us in the future. No pets and everyone eating beancurds.


4mongo

just to be clear, it wasn't my question. If I sell anything it will be saulosi baby that are purely saulosi. I

I was just jerking your chain, yodahorn! I've been known to do that on occasion! Nanananaa

I could go on and on with this subject, but it all comes down to the same thing...

Do what you want in your tanks, but if you want pure species, you need to stock the tanks accordingly. And if you produce hybrids, you need to represent them as such.

The scary part is that once those fish leave your hands, you have no control over what anyone else does!

Kim

Hey "geelite",,,you never answered back to the thread you started????

I agree with most of these responces,but like the "Mrs." said,,,,,it's all about what YOU want in YOUR tanks! PERIOD!!!!

To be honest with you, when I first started in this hobby,,I NEVER thought anything about the possibility of x-breeding. Always just thought of them as just fish, you know,,change the water,,feed them, ect.ect.ect.

I just figured,,hey,,if these yellow things breed with these blue things,,,they'd be beautiful. Never thought what I'd do with them afterward. Hmmmm

Then I got serious after joining these silly little forums. Started getting only m/f of the same, sometimes 1m/2-3f, and if they bred,they bred. I didnt know what I was going to do with them if this happened,,,but when it happened,,they went to an auction,or used for trade-ins at the LFS. And they were marked as "mixed" wherever they were going.

Enough babbling,,,,just curious though,,,,if you were concidering x-breeding,,what are the choices?

Answer what??? I'm lost here...If you mean would i mix breed, then my answer is NO! my friend.

I dont think its a good idea to cross breed for all the reasons mentioned already.


I will say that I have contemplated taking OB peacocks which (in the hobby)are typically a hybrid anyway- and crossing a female ob with a pure male such as a Regal peacock...I havent done this. Probaby never will....but I bet this has been done as I am no longer seeing just the blah brown and pink patterns on male Ob's....now they are showing up with some vivid red OB patterns as well