Reply To: Breeding programs?
Hi L777,
Thanks for your post. To answer your questions :
1) does anyone know of any organized effort to “register” or otherwise track the lineages of the fish now in tanks?
Yes, one of the purposes of this site is to coordinate formalized breeding for this new species. However, no formal system is in place. In all honesty, even though I set up this site, I have no experience in breeding, but understand the concepts (from biology classes, covering genetics). At this point my own “wild” stock has had fry and I’ve given away the first batch. Am waiting for subsequent batches of fry.
I’m hoping that more experienced fish breeders will take the lead and suggest any kind of tracking system that would work as a “breeding program”. What is standard practice? Let me know and I will figure out the Web application for it.
At this point, with no formalized program in place, my gut feel is that individual breeders will (hopefully) track their own generations and swap young fish among themselves to maintain a healthy gene pool. However, it would be a good idea to put a formal program into place. Since we are still in the early stages of discovery of this species, it would be opportune to do this.
2) in terms of trying to maintain a stock that remains as true as possible to the wild caught populations, how much variation have you all noticed among your fish? I have noticed quite a bit of individuality among the color patterns in the males’ anal fins in particular… should I be selecting for a certain body shape and coloration?
That is another purpose of this site — to visually record as much as possible of this fish’s physical traits, to use as a reference point for breeders. One of our members Glenn has posted some excellent photos of this fish. I hope to see more photos of the “wild caught” generation posted, so if anyone has them, please do so.
Again thanks for your post, and I hope that you can suggest any ideas you have on breeding programs.
Welcome aboard!