The dirty truth about farmed raise Malawi cichlids

[vinman]

For years I been telling everyone that most Malawi Cichlids in the hobby are hybrids. I catch a lot of flack so today I decided to show you all the proof in a article that Laif Demason wrote in a 1991 in # 146 of the Buntbarsche Bulletin ( BB) from the ACA The article even shows you how to do it. I thank you Laif for writing this article.

 

[Avatar]

I don't do Africans...

..but a one page+ 20-year old hypothetical scenario that the author freely admits represents an "extreme example" (read as: it could happen but hasn't necessarily except in the author's imagination) involving not most Malawi cichlids but "commercial hybrids" doesn't remotely constitute "proof" by any definition of the word. Additionally even if such practices occur as described, and in light of the the number of wild-caught individuals steadily entering the trade, the author provides zero basis to support the statement that "most Malawi Cichlids in the hobby are hybrids" unless one's definition of hybrids assumes that the "species" in the Lake are already predominantly and merely hybrids/strains of the same species spread out over broad areas with associated morphological variation. As such, your alleged "proof" is approaching the limits of what in technical parlance (and on the street) is referred to as "lame".

You needn't accept my view on this - you can contact Laif at Old World Exotic Fish, Inc. in Homestead, Florida yourself. I'm quite sure he will be able to clarify what he is actually saying in the article which is in fact very different from what you assert.

 

[vinman]

The fact this artical is comming from a fish farmer tells you what is being done . I remember the first wild albino peacock . A few years latter the were so many albino peacocks from different locations. Nothing before that peacok was found but after it was found so many different peacocks were avaibile in albino. You have to look at fish like L hongi. The fish has a orange to yellow dorsal in nature with a light lavender body. The SRT hongi does not have a lavender body but a indgo blue body and a deep red dorsal. I bred them for 12 years or more. I bred mine for the deepness of of color in the dorsal. My hongi all desended from wild imports. I started with about 4 animals. I never got any with a bright red dorsal nor a indgo blue body. Belive me when I tell you I grew up the best of the best colored fish with the intense orange dorsal color. I'm not saying every farm bred fish is a hybrid but IMO I would say more hybrids than pure. I see lots of farmed bred peacocks at Alantis and if I was not told they were farm bred I would swear they were wild. I guess I should say most of the stuff that comes out of Fl and Asia are hybrids. Now how many of these fish are bred into pure strains. I have to give credit to Leif he raises some good Malwai fish . I would say the vast majority of what the produce is pure but they do raise some hybrids too. I don't trust the german raised stuff but the animals comming out of the Czechoslovakia are some great quality. I also raise some aquaium strains fish that I would never lable as pure just a good Aquaium strain.

I'm not being a jerk or being fresh but if you don't do africans how do you know what is going on and what looks pure and what does not. Even with a trained eye it is hard to find markers in hybrid Malawi fish

 

[vinman]

BTW no hypothetical scenario he clearly states (Rarely that Commerical Breeders market a one to one hybrid as a new speices. He also goes on the say they destroy the animals that were used in the project to hide where the gene came from. ) he even post a chart on how they do it

 

[Avatar]

Argument has nothing to do with Africans

Has everything to do with logic, critical thinking, literacy, common sense and having facts rather than BS that supports a position. You said that you had "proof" that Malawi cichlids are mostly hybrids and then posted an article that says nothing of the kind and offers not a single shred of evidence to support your position. You may not be trying to be a jerk but it's not clear that you have enough intellectual gunpowder to blow your nose.

Let me guess: you routinely breed Malawi hybrids and are trying to justify this by saying that most everyone else does as well.

We're done here, or at least I am, you'll have to find someone else to field your rave.

Cheers

 

[vinman]

Has everything to do with logic, critical thinking, literacy, common sense and having facts rather than BS that supports a position. You said that you had "proof" that Malawi cichlids are mostly hybrids and then posted an article that says nothing of the kind and offers not a single shred of evidence to support your position. You may not be trying to be a jerk but it's not clear that you have enough intellectual gunpowder to blow your nose.

Let me guess: you routinely breed Malawi hybrids and are trying to justify this by saying that most everyone else does as well.

We're done here, or at least I am, you'll have to find someone else to field your rave.

Cheers

Nope most of my fish are wild caught. That artical tells how the farms transfer color or a mutation from one spiecies to another . If you re read it you will see it is how they cross breed fish to make what they want. Not only Mutations like albino but color too. I been keeping and breeding African cichlids for 33 years. I can not comment whats being done in the New World Cichlids because I don't keep them. The only thing I know about the hybrids is the true red devil and the Midas cichlid. and how years ago they used to sell them both as red devils. So being you don't keep African Cichlids you really can't say what is going on

Please re read the 5th paragraph. it says right there.that Commercial Breeders hybridize fish and rarely sell the offspring fro a one to one species cross

 

[AndyNarwhal]

As someone who once worked on a fish farm in Florida for a couple of years and someone who knows Laif DeMason I have to disagree with your premise.

Laif and others take great pains to ensure that their brood stock are pure strains. I know this for a fact. Some farmers also intentionally create hybrids for specific traits such as albinism or the OB pattern. These fish would never be confused as wild type fish but are highly marketable and necessary to pay the bills and stay competitive. It's because of these fish that Laif is able to support keeping the Victorian and Madagascar cichlids that he has on his farm that are poor sellers but extinct or endangered in the wild.

That's not saying that every farmer takes the same amount of care to prevent hybridization but it is a gross misrepresentation to say that most Malawi cichlids are hybrids. Even "wild caught" fish from Africa are now often farm raised on farms in Africa and may not be pure to location.

Now I can only speak for the farms in Florida that I have worked at and toured, I can't speak about the farms in Asia. Until you have ever been to a fish farm and toured the facility and investigated their process all you have is an unvalidated opinion.

Andy

 

[hollyfish2000]

This thread feels troll-like to me . . .

OP -- What was your point in your original post? I don't have a "dog in this race" one way or another about hybrids or no, but if you think one 20-year-old article constitutes "proof" of anything, I'm glad you're not a researcher.

 

[vinman]

AndyNarwhal,
I would say a lot of the farms do not got to the extreems that Old world goes through with most of there farm raised cichlids. The fact is that they also have access to wild caught fish and a great price because they are the ones bring them in. I seen over the years lot of the stock list from the farms where you see Labeotropheus with no nose or the inbetween body being sold as either or Ssp of Labeothropeus. Cherry red zebras, Crappy Elongatus crossed with socolfi. The list goes on. I know I was working up here with a Fl fish farmer helping improve his stock. We traded some stock. I would get some of the hybrid peacocks from him and send him down some pure fish to inprove his stock. I was talso telling him to start over wild fish for to inprove his breeding stock, this way he had good stock to supply the market. He told me a lot of farmers just trade stuff betweem themselves. I had him look at pic's on the net and he admitted that he sees the differance in a lot of the tank raised F1, F2 and wild stock to what is being raised in a lot of the farms. When it comes to the fish farms down in Fl you dont get better than old world. I'm very surprised Leif wrote this article . I'm very glad he did. I'm glad how does mention they not only do this for mutations but for color too.


hollyfish2000,
You have to realize. Your not going to find a lot of this info on the net . If you want research it yourself and find something that can contribute to the thread from another farmer that breeds cichlids, Please do. Please refrain form slinging your insults.

 

[hollyfish2000]

This thread feels troll-like to me . . .

OP -- What was your point in your original post? I don't have a "dog in this race" one way or another about hybrids or no, but if you think one 20-year-old article constitutes "proof" of anything, I'm glad you're not a researcher.

Question above remains unanswered.

Comment about proof or lack thereof stands . . . I am not a researcher not do I pretend to be one. However, if I were to make a fairly controversial statement on a forum such as ours, I'd have more ammunition than I currently see to support it . . .

 

[dogofwar]

I also don't believe that the article that Vinny attached proves the premise that "most Malawi Cichlids in the hobby are hybrids."

That said, it makes sense for all of us to be skeptical of the "purity" of cichlids in the marketplace, farmed, "imported" or from hobbyists. Without demonstrable provenance to the wild, it's best to assume that most cichlids aren't pure (or at least pure enough for inclusion in, for example, breeding projects with known provenance fish).

Apart from crooks selling pond or farm-raised fish as "wild" (hey, that's what I was told they were!), poor husbandry practices can result in inadvertent hybridization. For example, breeding multiple mbuna, Hap or peacock species in the same tank or pond can result in crosses.

This article (and it was a series of back-and-forths, if memory holds) was about the explosion of albino peacocks, haps, etc. on the market at the time. It seemed quite fishy at the time and still does (at least to me).

The bottom line is that 99+% of the aquarium fish market values new, colorful and cheap over verifiable purity. That a whatever peacock is 1/64th some other kind of peacock in order to carry albino trait couldn't matter less to most. Or that a whatever peacock was developed by crossing two different geographical varients of the same peacock species (or two different peacock species).

We're the 0.5% who might care. But be prepared to pay a premium for it...and take the care to practice proper husbandry and labeling of fish that you breed and sell!

Matt

 

[Tony]

This isn't going anywhere good.

Thread closed.