balloon rams

[yutaka]

Hi guys,


Recently, I bought 2 pairs of rams which has a rounded body for both male and female measuring 3-4cm in length. They had been "doing it" since,the same pair within 3weeks.the fries are doing fine,so far.

I could not find any pictures or info on the net on these cuties as they seemed to be different in terms of size and shape although they are just as brilliantly coloured.I wonder if they are of different strain, mutants or genetically engineered? The "normal" rams are selling for Malaysian $1.50/us.0.40 while the cuties are fetching around M$9 a piece.

I have also seen larger cuties ,presumably adult size, which is less than 6cm selling at M$12.Does anyone have/seen these before? I prefer to breed these cuties but am not sure how the fries will turn out in adulthood.


Cheers,

Yutaka.

 

[tjudy]

A picture of these fish is posted in the Other SA Cichlid section of www.daah.info.

 

[2la]

Please, whatever you do, do NOT mix these with normal (especially wild-type) rams! I'll leave it at that...

 

[Neil]

yutaka,

WELCOME TO THE FORUM

These are most definitely man-made creations and may be prone to certain problems. I don't know for sure, but keep your eye on them and keep their water as clean as possible. I am curious to know what their fry will turn out like. Let us know.
Neil

 

[yutaka]

ballon ram fries

Hi guys,

The fries, mostly about 1.5cm in length ,seem alright so far.
As the growth rate is pathetically slow, I starve them and fed them with frozen blood worm,instead of daphnia.

All of them have rounded body and beginning to show some color,too.
The black on the dorsal is clearly evident,including the white tip on the mouth.

I have about 30 of them at present, since the rest had been taken away by dragonfly larvae. Today, I discoverred the same pair did it again and the fries are already free swimming.I hope to raise more fries successfully this time round.


Cheers,

Yutaka

 

[yutaka]

Hi Guys,


I have posted some of the juvenile balloon/mini ram picture at
http://daah.info/index. You are right Neil, the are hard to raise.But at least the are what they are ie tinier than standard ram. Their appetite seemed insatiablebut they grow real slow.


Cheers,

yutaka

 

[2la]

I read in that thread that you may want to breed them back with standard rams. Please don't. As much as I dislike dysmorphic strains of fish, as long as the lines are kept pure and distinct, it's fine. If you breed this with a normal strain and by Mendelian genetics all or a fraction of the offspring appear normal, customers down the line may unwittingly continue polluting the gene pool with the 'balloon' trait if you decide to distribute the offspring. I don't care that you seem to have ignored my earlier plea, but please keep the bloodlines separate.

 

[adder]

I can't seem to get the link to work and I'm very curious to see the pics...!
I've tried your link as well as http://www.daah.info/index
But no luck...?

 

[2la]

See if this link works:

http://daah.info/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=2289

 

[yutaka]

hi guys,


i posted some pic of adult and juvenile balloon rams on these site...
check it out, u might like or dislike what u see...http://www.cichlidmadness.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1852

they don't seemed to be man made...if so, u might find lots of balloon stuff in other dwarf cichlid...

in fact, i believe they are the dwarf of the regular ram...
dwarfism occur to a number of species...
i have seen dwarf betta, arowana and of course this phenomena also happen to human...

how would u define a deform fish/being?

i hope u will enjoy what u see, as these cute little fatty breed true offspring with intense coloration and form my experience they r hardier than the standard ram....i would prefer to call these gems mini ram as they r never anything close to balloon molly ....they just have more compact and stockier body shape....a picture paints a thousand words, go feast yur eyes...





yutaka

 

[2la]

The fact that dwarfism has yet to be discovered in other dwarf cichlid species doesn't preclude these rams from being man-made (case in point: How many gold/yellow or triple-red variants do you know to exist outside of the Apistogramma cacatuoides species?). It just means that if such a 'dwarfism gene' exists in other dwarf cichlid species that it either has yet to be discovered and/or it is extremely rare due to disfavorable selection in nature.

 

[yutaka]

beauty is in the eye of the beholder....

as a fish hobbyist , whatever the species may be ,i try to appreciate their beauty and ornamental value through an open mind without prejudice and discrimination....




yutaka

 

[2la]

yutaka, I'm curious why you feel the need to keep philosophizing (not just in this thread, but in several) when the discussion here is speaking of genetics and lineage purity and such? There's no need to feel defensive; if you like the fish, that's perfectly fine.

 

[yutaka]

I think you have grossly over reacted.
I am only stating my opinion and the obvious ie beauty is truly in the eye
of the beholder.

We are here in this forum in search of knowledge and to share the enjoyment and peace within the realm of fish keeping.
It's kinda funny where one could be so agitated over a fish's origin.

FH drive me up the walls.LOL

 

[2la]

Am I overreacting to the possibility of unwittingly distributing impure strains of ram throughout the hobby, or are you overzealous in your misdirectional defense of beauty being in the eye of the beholder?

Let's clarify the issue, here: If the balloon trait is recessive, it can remain hidden within the offspring of the mixed rams, and responsible husbandry would mandate that you are honest in your disclosure of their heritage. Otherwise, any serious breeder picking up a normal appearing ram from your batch of fry may unwittingly discover that her efforts to acquire pure stock has instead introduced the balloon gene into her tanks. If you are honest to others about the offsprings' mixed heritage, then there's absolutely no problem with that. This is a practical and ethical issue, not a moral one as you seem to be taking it.

Likewise, I'm curious why you chose to answer the scientific question of whether or not your rams are a selectively bred versus a naturallly occurring variant with an emotionally and philosophically laden answer? Have you found any references to this morph being caught in the wild? (I have been unsuccessful in doing so.) And again, please bear in mind that the question of their natural occurrence is NOT one that is making any type of attempt to place a value judgment on your fish, anymore than the question of double-red agassizii being natural or man-made fish would be on that particular fish. These are practical questions of dwarf cichlid husbandry.

 

[aquabillpers]

My imagination might be limited, but I cannot understand why anyone would want to take such a great fish as the ram and breed it to establish genetic abnormalities. Sure, it might be fun, but there is no scientific value to it when done by laymen and there is a significant danger that the ram gene pool might be futher damaged.

There is other valuable work that hobbyists can due with rams, such as removing the negative genetic affects of inbreeding, one of the reasons that make buying gold rams a gamble.

Regards,

Bill

 

[yutaka]

Am I overreacting to the possibility of unwittingly distributing impure strains of ram throughout the hobby, or are you overzealous in your misdirectional defense of beauty being in the eye of the beholder?

Let's clarify the issue, here: If the balloon trait is recessive, it can remain hidden within the offspring of the mixed rams, and responsible husbandry would mandate that you are honest in your disclosure of their heritage. Otherwise, any serious breeder picking up a normal appearing ram from your batch of fry may unwittingly discover that her efforts to acquire pure stock has instead introduced the balloon gene into her tanks. If you are honest to others about the offsprings' mixed heritage, then there's absolutely no problem with that. This is a practical and ethical issue, not a moral one as you seem to be taking it.

Likewise, I'm curious why you chose to answer the scientific question of whether or not your rams are a selectively bred versus a naturallly occurring variant with an emotionally and philosophically laden answer? Have you found any references to this morph being caught in the wild? (I have been unsuccessful in doing so.) And again, please bear in mind that the question of their natural occurrence is NOT one that is making any type of attempt to place a value judgment on your fish, anymore than the question of double-red agassizii being natural or man-made fish would be on that particular fish. These are practical questions of dwarf cichlid husbandry.

As a hobbyist, maintaining a pure strain has always been my priority and adequate measures have also been taken to avoid the perils of inbreeding.Furthermore, the common rams are such weakling that the balloon trait just outlive them and they are still alive and thriving.The question of tainting the common rams bloodline does not exist.Your have unlimited imagination and the wild allegation do not seemed unusual.

We are not alien to variations and mutations of many species.
IMO some of them are from the wild while the majority are the resulting effects of domestication,which have somewhat provided them with ample room to naturally express their themselves in the form of various color morph and even physical appearances ie high fin, veiltail etc.Don't you think it's a ,little weird if one have to check out a certain variant and see if they exist in the wild before they could be accepted into the hobby.
A dwarf from the wild or any hobbyists' back yard is still a dwarf.

Hobbyist and fish enthusiasts etc meet in this forums and many other similar forums because of one simple common interest,fish keeping.
It makes one wonder why you would pick on this tiny fish who can't even defend itself? Cool it, it's just fish,give them a break,it's just a hobby.Sigh!!

 

[yutaka]

My imagination might be limited, but I cannot understand why anyone would want to take such a great fish as the ram and breed it to establish genetic abnormalities. Sure, it might be fun, but there is no scientific value to it when done by laymen and there is a significant danger that the ram gene pool might be futher damaged.

There is other valuable work that hobbyists can due with rams, such as removing the negative genetic affects of inbreeding, one of the reasons that make buying gold rams a gamble.

A plain hobbyist like myself and many others do have dreams but I am not capable of making wild dreams to the extent of attaching any scientific value to breeding this trait of rams."Damaging gene pool"!!?? Where you copy this line from? lol.

You are right about rams.
I wouldn't deny it, they are such beautiful and great fish.
They have the capacity to mutate into a different physical morph but your limited imagination choose to see them abnormal and it's perfectly fine.

Perhaps in the near future this trait may even exihibit more color morph than the common ram.

Back to fish keeping.

 

[2la]

As a hobbyist, maintaining a pure strain has always been my priority and adequate measures have also been taken to avoid the perils of inbreeding.Furthermore, the common rams are such weakling that the balloon trait just outlive them and they are still alive and thriving.The question of tainting the common rams bloodline does not exist.

Sure it does: Indeed, you unequivocally imply as much by stating that "maintaining a pure strain has always been my priority..." That, in fact, has been my position and my message all along, and if I have been a little heavy-handed with my earlier replies it is only because you decided to keep your sense of responsibility a secret for so long...

Rather senseless to be arguing over things we agree upon, isn't it?

Don't you think it's a ,little weird if one have to check out a certain variant and see if they exist in the wild before they could be accepted into the hobby.

Unfortunately, you seem almost willful in missing the point completely yet again. Until aquabillpers interjected very recently, no one save you has talked of "acceptance". You earlier had suggested that "they don't seemed to be man made," while both Neil and I have taken the position that it is indeed a selectively bred strain. Somehow, that discussion keeps getting truncated in favor of replies concerning the acceptance of these fish or their value in the hobby.

A dwarf from the wild or any hobbyists' back yard is still a dwarf.

No doubt, but the subtlety of the question concerns not whether it is still a dwarf, but whether or not it is "from the wild or any hobbyists' back yard"...

Hobbyist and fish enthusiasts etc meet in this forums and many other similar forums because of one simple common interest,fish keeping. It makes one wonder why you would pick on this tiny fish who can't even defend itself? Cool it, it's just fish,give them a break,it's just a hobby.Sigh!!

Sigh, indeed. But if you think me wanting to discuss whether or not the balloon ram is a naturally occurring variant or a selectively bred one constitutes "picking" on it, then I would suggest that I am not the one who needs to "cool it" here... :|

 

[Apistt_ed]

...

From balloon rams to Parrot cichlids to the "mighty" FLOWER HORN, they are all pretty "unique" and beautiful in their own way... but if one does choose to keep these fish, there is something that they have to understand about how these fish actually came about. The flower horn seems to be a crossbreed made up of many cichlisoma, such as the red devil and others and the parrots are what seem to be a crossbreed of the convict and others. There is certainly nothing wrong with keeping these fish in the hobby, ONLY that I believe that this promotes the hobby into it's "darkest" of hours, not because these fish may "stain" the purity if bred with others, in such as the case with the parrots (that I have come to understand as being able to breed and have fertile young), but the fact that there are what I would call, "sick individuals" who breed these fish and mutilate them in a number of ways just to make them more pleasing to others and to "jack up the prices." In the Japanese market, there are opportunists who have taken this specific fish and have bred it into a number of shapes, colors, and shades because they are said to be a "good luck" fish and sell them at insane prices. Along with that, they keep their " mixes/breeds" secret because they want to keep this market lucrative! It truely is a sad developement. Ethical or not, it's only my opinion. The fish are the ones harmed in the end.
sorry this is aside from what you were talking about but it's similar and just something that came to mind while reading your posts.