dogofwar
CCA Members
I put hybrids (and other fancy fish) into two categories:
1) Intentionally developed strains or lines of fancy fish (e.g. OB peacocks, koi angelfish, electric orange colored discus, quality flowerhorns, electric blue JDs and acaras, ruby red peacocks, firefish, parrots, etc.) - in other words fancy fish that were developed (through line breeding, hybridization or both) to be different from what's found in nature. Man's been creating fancy fish since like 200AD (colored koi).
2) Random crosses that result from fish breeding in aquarium conditions. "Mixed" Africans, two different Central Americans breeding, crossing strains of peacocks, haps, etc. This is often the unintended result of keeping multiple varieties of fish together that wouldn't naturally occur. Many, many cichlids will cross. And the first generation offspring are likely to not be anything particularly interesting or special. They'll probably look kind of like one parent or another. Which is the main issue.
Rich is right: the fish themselves aren't bad, per se. What can result in bad things is when they're sold or traded.
There are no shortage of fish posted on our forum and elsewhere asking for an ID. Whether this is as a result of people not keeping labels for the fish that they get with solid labels, people pulling fish out of mixed tanks or something else, who knows. People postulate and guess. And sometimes one can be pretty certain. But at the end of the day, without some provenance on the fish... especially on easily and commonly hybridized or mixed stuff, it's just a guess. And better to assume that it shouldn't be included in a breeding project and/or definitively labeled as anything other than a mixed african cichlid or low-grade flowerhorn or midevil or whatever....which can be interesting and beautiful fish.
For all of the people that get angry about hybrid fish making "pure" fish difficult to find, I think that the burden sits with the minority of us who care about keeping lines of fish as authentic to wild-type as possible. If we want to maintain "pure" lines, it's up to us....
Matt
1) Intentionally developed strains or lines of fancy fish (e.g. OB peacocks, koi angelfish, electric orange colored discus, quality flowerhorns, electric blue JDs and acaras, ruby red peacocks, firefish, parrots, etc.) - in other words fancy fish that were developed (through line breeding, hybridization or both) to be different from what's found in nature. Man's been creating fancy fish since like 200AD (colored koi).
2) Random crosses that result from fish breeding in aquarium conditions. "Mixed" Africans, two different Central Americans breeding, crossing strains of peacocks, haps, etc. This is often the unintended result of keeping multiple varieties of fish together that wouldn't naturally occur. Many, many cichlids will cross. And the first generation offspring are likely to not be anything particularly interesting or special. They'll probably look kind of like one parent or another. Which is the main issue.
Rich is right: the fish themselves aren't bad, per se. What can result in bad things is when they're sold or traded.
There are no shortage of fish posted on our forum and elsewhere asking for an ID. Whether this is as a result of people not keeping labels for the fish that they get with solid labels, people pulling fish out of mixed tanks or something else, who knows. People postulate and guess. And sometimes one can be pretty certain. But at the end of the day, without some provenance on the fish... especially on easily and commonly hybridized or mixed stuff, it's just a guess. And better to assume that it shouldn't be included in a breeding project and/or definitively labeled as anything other than a mixed african cichlid or low-grade flowerhorn or midevil or whatever....which can be interesting and beautiful fish.
For all of the people that get angry about hybrid fish making "pure" fish difficult to find, I think that the burden sits with the minority of us who care about keeping lines of fish as authentic to wild-type as possible. If we want to maintain "pure" lines, it's up to us....
Matt
