- Messages
- 18
- Location
- England
If you where to release a pair of Apistogrammas in to a pond or stream with no competition they would probably if conditions where right produce a viable population but with a very small gene pool.
Inbred mutations of a detrimental type would occur but would be very unlikely to reach adult hood or to be able to breed because of the pressures of life in the wild.
I bread Pseudocrenilabrus philander which where kept in a 60†x 18†x 18†community tank. There where three females and two males of over 6 broods removed and raised over 50% had some kind of mutation ranging from no swimming bladder to curved pectoral fins weather or not this was genetic or for some other reason I don’t know.
However of the broods I did not have space for and where left in the tank. Of seven fish that survived not one shows any kind of mutation.
The original stock came from a wholesaler in the Czech Republic and it is this kind of fish I am talking about and not f1 or f2 fish.
Also the mutations mentioned are of a type you can see and not of the internal organs.
The reason I think there is such a big problem with wholesale fish of this type is because you can produce a large number of fish from a small number of breeding fish and only when the number of mutants become so great that it is no longer fanatically viable that they will look to introduce new stock.
I spend a lot of time at my LFS’s and in almost all of the tanks there was at least one mutant.
When I buy my fish they are purchased site unseen. I have to trust the person caching the fish to select the best stock. By purchasing wild I limit my chances of getting any mutants.
Also in the next 6 months I will be setting up 5 – 72†x 24†x 12†tanks for my fish and hope to be able to breed them in a more natural way. Though the numbers may be low, I hope the quality will be better.
Also though genetic mutation is rear it is not that rear to not have an affect on the captive population. In the wild a female fish only needs to have 2 of over a 1000 young to survive to keep the specie going. Of these 1000 fish at least 1 will have a mutation of a type.
Also cichlids do seem for what ever reason more prone to mutation than in other species. Look at Lake Victoria and The number of new Apistogrammas that are being found all the time with out mutation they would not occur.
Inbred mutations of a detrimental type would occur but would be very unlikely to reach adult hood or to be able to breed because of the pressures of life in the wild.
I bread Pseudocrenilabrus philander which where kept in a 60†x 18†x 18†community tank. There where three females and two males of over 6 broods removed and raised over 50% had some kind of mutation ranging from no swimming bladder to curved pectoral fins weather or not this was genetic or for some other reason I don’t know.
However of the broods I did not have space for and where left in the tank. Of seven fish that survived not one shows any kind of mutation.
The original stock came from a wholesaler in the Czech Republic and it is this kind of fish I am talking about and not f1 or f2 fish.
Also the mutations mentioned are of a type you can see and not of the internal organs.
The reason I think there is such a big problem with wholesale fish of this type is because you can produce a large number of fish from a small number of breeding fish and only when the number of mutants become so great that it is no longer fanatically viable that they will look to introduce new stock.
I spend a lot of time at my LFS’s and in almost all of the tanks there was at least one mutant.
When I buy my fish they are purchased site unseen. I have to trust the person caching the fish to select the best stock. By purchasing wild I limit my chances of getting any mutants.
Also in the next 6 months I will be setting up 5 – 72†x 24†x 12†tanks for my fish and hope to be able to breed them in a more natural way. Though the numbers may be low, I hope the quality will be better.
Also though genetic mutation is rear it is not that rear to not have an affect on the captive population. In the wild a female fish only needs to have 2 of over a 1000 young to survive to keep the specie going. Of these 1000 fish at least 1 will have a mutation of a type.
Also cichlids do seem for what ever reason more prone to mutation than in other species. Look at Lake Victoria and The number of new Apistogrammas that are being found all the time with out mutation they would not occur.