137 replies to this topic

[Scat]

OK from now on I will ignore all posts, so dont anyone bother to aim a comment to me because it will be ignored, you can all jump in a lake

Someone needs a *hug*

Now now Den dont run just yet !

[STEVEGREEN]

"its your relaxed attitude on the subject Steve that has allowed you to provide a service to a paying customer for the money , and not taking time to think of the hobby.

why , if you knew before the fact , would you allow the owner of the tank trade the fish into a shop when it is in a community tank with the chance of x-breeding ?

why not take the 2 minutes out of your time an explain the problem ??? oh thats right , to you there is no problem"

mate, thanks for the personal attack.
for i guy ive never met you sure know alot about me, what i do and how it all works , youve made yourself look like a bit of an idiot.
im not getting into it and it was never my intention
again simply an observation.


????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

please explain , i dont think my comments have made me "look like an idiot" i think my comments are a true reflection of the lack of effort that you feel you need to put into ensuring the integrity of the available species in WA whilst you conduct your business.

this would be on par with most shop owners i have met.

i dont expect shop owners to be as passionate about the subject as i am.

this is the same reason why i have been both the Vice President and the President of the PCS in the past as protecting what we have is ,IMO of the highest importance.

Den the garbage you are pumping out in your post deserves no response and your overwhelming scent of your own self importance and the belief that your are a authority on any subject is laughable.

Cheers
Steve Green

[Den]

protecting what we have is ,IMO of the highest importance.

I myself and I'm confident Scuba Steve and other flowerhorn keepers agree with this statement completely and absolutely, maintaining species diversity and purity is just as important as maintaining quality flowerhorns to us. We just happen to disagree that completely banning and ignoring flowerhorns is a way to deal with the overall issue of hybrids.

Den the garbage you are pumping out in your post deserves no response and your overwhelming scent of your own self importance and the belief that your are a authority on any subject is laughable.

this is the same reason why i have been both the Vice President and the President of the PCS in the past

hmmm, smelling the scent of self importance are you? but are you sure thats smell is coming from me? because its seems you've caught the whiff from yourself.

Whenever I ask you to back up one of your usually "derogatory" comments you come back at me with another derogatory response, if you want to be thought of as credible you need to share some experience and put some substance in your comments.




Cheers
Den

[Scat]

This is no longer a debate and is just childish.

Obviously you two cant get along so maybe you should just leave each other alone, This kind of thread benefits no-one

Craig

[Den]

I recently had a male electric yellow dancing with a female acuticeps.
I can't say they definately will breed as I removed the male as quick as I could.
The tank is an 8x2x2 with 3ft sump and 5000lph pump.

This is only a post about one of my experiences in fish keeping and is not intended as a direct attack on flowerhorns, their keepers or any person in particular.
Have a nice day

Andrew

Thanks for sharing Andrew, now this is a real experince that could be discussed. Since there is scientific data that shows hybrids in the wild are quite rare, perhaps if we could investigate further into real experiences like this we might be able to achieve an understanding of what causes our fish to step outside of their ordinary behaviours and hybridise.

However we do not know if this was a territorial display or a real attempt at mating, and since it seems no mating was able to take place its probably not the best example to investigate.

Had a mating took place some of my questions would be, what was the entire fish population of the tank, please describe the decour and water conditions at the time of this incident.

Cheers
Den

[werdna]

I would prefer the mating didnt take place, so stopped the chance.
Tank had finely crushed aragonite as substrate (90% of which has been moved to form a massive breeding pit) and 3 separate piles of limestone to give plenty of caves but heaps of open swimming area and what was supposed to be a good layer of substrate for them to sift thru, but is now almost a bare glass bottom.

It is sitting on a stand I custom made for someone who told me they trust me to build them a good strong, sturdy stand, then after building it argued that it would not be strong enough to hold an 8 ft tank and was hence no good. Even after applying 700kg to the least supported part and having less than 1mm of flex in the steel he still didnt believe me, so I told him thank you for being kind enough to encourage me to build my own 8ft stand. (A bit off topic, but I dont know what the topic of this post is anymore)

[Den]

A bit off topic, but I dont know what the topic of this post is anymore

A few people seem lost, so I will try to clarify, Scuba Steve began the discussion by presenting some of his personal experiences with Malawis hybridising, I added the experience I had with keeing a large population of malawis in a large aquarium and so did Tony with his experience keeping them in a large pond. In betweem there have been some derailments to our discussion with vague comments and personal attacks.

Overall since Steve started this thread to me it seems the topic is hybrids, but mostly relating to real experiences with Malawis and Malawi hybrids.

Cheers
Den

[Tucunare]

ok mr green your comments are fair enough, though you need to stop making people feel as though there wrong if there opinion differs from yours.
look to be honest i dont really care enough to make a song and dance call it a lack of effort if you want, i personally like what appeals visually to me, if thats is a straight up great looking electric yellow - as ive expressed to werdna on his then great, if thats a hybrid that has 20 fish mixed up into it then hey so be it.
bottem line is my intention here was to bring light on an issue thats far bigger than whats going on in the hobbists groups. alot of people would think that this issue only exists within the hobby, my comments were to indicate we as hobbiest are a huge minority when it comes to how many fish tank there are out there
nothin more, nothing less

for me personally i just like things that not everyone has and again be it a flowerhorn, be it the hottest wc tricotti i dont really mind if it blows me away when i see it then thats what i like, i think if you hate hybrids, good for you, if you love em good for you.

[Poncho]

We just happen to disagree that completely banning and ignoring flowerhorns is a way to deal with the overall issue of hybrids

This is not a reply to you Den (so don't feel the need to answer) but just to put this statement into context my interpretation of the situation is:

The PCS does not ignore the problems associated with any hybrid fish. The PCS bans all hybrids and does not focus this ban on any particular type of hybrid whether they are intentionally bred or not. Flowerhorns may seem to be the focus of this policy but they are not. The perception that flowerhorns in particular are receiving heightened levels of attention from the committee is a result of one or two members continuously attempting to promote them on this site and thus ignoring and not respecting the policies established by the club (not the present committee) because of the values of the majority of our members - past and (I assume) present.

Discussion of the issues surrounding hybrids is absolutely permitted and should be encouraged as that's how the club is able to educate the wider fishkeeping community about the issues surrounding them. Discussion surrounding the "quality" or "features" of hybrids eg. what is a KOK, is clearly promotion of hybrids, not education or discussion of the hybrid issue, thus will be removed from this site as it is against our policy.

Perhaps the club can do more in regards to addressing the issues of hybrids, but what we are doing is working to some extent as our growing membership is increasingly keeping fish in a manner that does not lend itself to hybridisation. If someone has an idea on how things can be done better I'm open to suggestions as long as it doesn't involve a defeatist attitude i.e. there's nothing we can do about it so let's just accept them.

[Den]

If someone has an idea on how things can be done better I'm open to suggestions as long as it doesn't involve a defeatist attitude i.e. there's nothing we can do about it so let's just accept them.

Un-intensional/accidental/unwanted/undesirable hybrids are an "ememy" to not just to the cichlid hobby but to fish keeping in general, however there can be a clear distinction made between various Flowerhorn, Discus and Angel fish line bred hybrids and what distinguishes them from the unwanted hybrids first mentioned above is that they are both created with intent and are desirable to many fish keepers.

Consider the attitude of Winston Churchill, "Do I not defeat my enemies when I make them my friend?".

Cheers
Den

[Fish Antics]

Un-intensional/accidental/unwanted/undesirable hybrids are an "ememy" to not just to the cichlid hobby but to fish keeping in general

I agree and Flower horns, blood parrots are top of that list of unwanted, undesirable hybrids to most cichlid enthusiasts. There will always be a market for these colourful fish with the “good luck" markings to sections of the population, just the same as Dyed or mutilated fish. However it doesn’t make them acceptable.
There is plenty of forums that cater for hybrid keepers why continue to bombard this club with your propaganda. I may be synical, however your newest topic to spam post happens to be connected with your purchase of a number of these fish with the intention of breeding and supply a market you are trying to develop.
Cichlid clubs across Australia the world quite rightly frown on these hybrids and as a group of enthusiasts who wish to keep and maintain quality cichlids we join clubs whose aims encourage our passion.

[Ronny]

I'm not having a go or anything and I didnt know where else to post this, but can some one tell my why normal deformed fish are frowned upon and are normally put under bricks while FH's parrots and those type of fish are seen as great with no tails and stumped bodies?

[Den]

I agree and Flower horns, blood parrots are top of that list of unwanted, undesirable hybrids to most cichlid enthusiasts.

Just wondering how are you able to quantify that? or do you just think you and a few other people have the right to speak and decide for every member?

Firstly you took my comment out of context, there was an end to that sentence. Personally since I developed my interest in flowerhorns Ive been meeting lots of cichlid keepers who like flowerhorns, its just most are too intimidated by the thuggery and persecution that goes on to voice it, and lets not forget the fact that the members who do express their interest here get their posts deleted!

however your newest topic to spam post happens to be connected with your purchase of a number of these fish with the intention of breeding and supply a market you are trying to develop

Again you make unsupported accusations about me. There is a large and unsatiable east coast hobby and market for these fish so as far as selling goes there is no need to develop a market in Perth if breeding and selling was my focused intention.

Pretty much every post I have made including this one has been a response to a comment directed at me, so you are being unfair to accuse me of spamming and again talking way out of line.

Cheers
Den

[Scat]

Must be just coincidence that you always seem to be in the middle of "some hot debate" Den


Craig

[Den]

Must be just coincidence that you always seem to be in the middle of "some hot debate" Den


Craig

Craig I am a participant on a number of aquarium related sites, this is the only site were I run into this kind of situation, so does that say something about me or the mentality of some of the people on this site? I let others be the judge of that.

Cheers
Den

[Scat]

Ive seen you have massive debates on pmadness before , this aint the only site !!

Anyway like i said, you always debating something lol


Craig

[Den]

Yes true, once with one person, who I still respect, but it was not over fish.

Cheers
Den

[Cichlidophile]

I just want to say that one major thing I've noticed is the only stores that seem focused on maintaining true strains are the sponsor stores of this site. Alot of non-sponsor stores I've been to have very in-experienced staff and alot of Hybrids (usually just within the Malawi's). To the point where some just have a sticker saying "parallel striped Mbuna". To me this thing looked like a Johanni X Maingano.. IMO a shop owner should know what they're looking at and if they do happen to get sold a hybrid that looks 100% like one of the parents but holds the gene, then is bred with the same species yet some of the fry when grown out start looking funny.. Then that shop owner should complain to the breeder they purchased the Hybrids from and find another source..

In saying that.. Steve(Tucunare) is right, we are the minority in all of this, all we can do is educate our friends that are interested.. if you hear a customer sounding quite clueless on cichlids at a store you may be visiting and the staff are busy, take 30 seconds to quickly brief them on cichlids, their aggression and how easily Malawi's are cross-bred and what it can do to the health of that fishes fry and the future of keeping exotic pure bred fish.. That person may now think your a fish hippy.. but hey! Atleast thats one more person who now knows, so if they choose to still let it happen then thats where the shop owner needs to know their fish and refuse to purchase the fry/juvies.

All in all.. Steve! Hurry the *($# up and open your shop mate!!

Cheers,
Gregg

[Tucunare]

a perfect example
yesterday a lady came in and asked if i wanted electric yellows as id sold the last 15 i said yeah ill take 20, anyways she tells me that shes just sold 30ish to a major pet chain and just called past on her way home to see if i wanted any.
anyways half an hour later shes at the front door with a bucket of fish. looking down on these fish yeah sweet as they look like any other electric yellows so i pay her the $$ and start a dripline into the bucket to aclimatise them. an hour later i decide there good to go in and net them out to put in the tank. looking at them through a tank there not true electric yellows. There full yellow with the black upper dorsal, but the anal fin has a metallic blue shine to it, there faces almost look exactly like convicts, very short with a small parrot looking mouth.
so ive got 20 and the other place has 30 il be selling mine or using them in displays as x breeds, but i can 100% garauntee that the pet chain wont - so id say all in all that 30 will result in 10-15 people buying them under false identification and potentually breeding them in there home aquariums.
again this was my orriginal point exactly.

[cichlovr]

So just going by your example, should the stores except juvies a all? In your case it was a weird cross so they were probably easy to identify. Had they been crosses between two Pseudotropheus species for example, that would have been almost impossible.