11 replies to this topic

[Den]

Hi All

I am curious as to the double standard I see in this hobby in relation to Hybrids.

Flower horns, blue demseys ect are dirty words in this hobby (mainly in the Western World), yet fancy discus and angel fish strains which are also inbred/crossbred and hybridized are accepted and even admired?

Why is there such a double standard and oppressive view towards some hybrids and not others, and who sets these rules and standards relating to hybrids?

Although I am personally not really keen on Hybrids, I wouldn'd say I am outright against them - I don't see a huge problem as long as they are properly explained as Hybrids to a purchaser and the hybrid fish is not bred to the point of a deformed physical state such as blood parrots, balloon mollys ect...

Regards
Den

[Fish Antics]

Hi Den

I don’t think there is a double standard with regards to Hybrids. Flower Horns, Blood Parrots, etc are hybrids which as a cross between two different species eg, Red devil and Trimac.
There is a difference between Hybrids and line breeding. The different types of discuss are breed by crossing different members of the same family such as disus to bring out a desired trait eg more red. I am not saying that this is necessarily a great practice but it is different to hybrids.

Tony.

[mtchye]

There are a couple of issues here, one of which is your definition of "species". Angelfish and discus strains were developed from morphologically very similar looking fish. Are they different species? According to current scientific views, yes. Technically then, most discus and angels in the hobby are hybrids of different, yet similar looking species.

Flowerhorns etc are hybrids of pretty closely related but different looking species. Problem is that the offspring vary wildly in appearance and many look pretty close to the parent species. The fear is that these hybrids could affect existing pure strains and muddy them up forever.

Is it a double standard? Probably. However, angels and discus breeders know what they have and those breeding true wild species are probably knowledgeable enough to know that unless the stock is wild caught or verified offspring they are unlikely to maintain a pure strain by outcrossing even to a wild looking fish.

This is because it is actually more expensive to buy a wild angel and sometimes more expensive to buy a wild discus compared to a domestic hybrid. Those who buy them are probably enthusiasts or specialists. The hybrids have been in the trade so long that they are the norm rather than the exception.

With flowerhorns the parent species are very common in pure form, with many owning them who may not necessarily understand or pick the differences between the pure and hybrid young. They are also relatively easy to spawn with large spawns that tend to have very low values, resulting in unscrupulous breeders dumping them as anything they can sell them as. Imagine a flowerhorn breeder who paid $500 + for a good pair and finding they throw out 1000 fry only a small proportion of which look like the ideal "flowerhorn" type look. The rest of the fry he sells as trimacs or whatever they look like. This would cause permanent and widespread damage to the hobby here in oz. I think that is why these types of hybrids have more attached stigma due to their potential damage to pure species availability in the hobby. Pure angels and discus are already hard to get and a specialist item so it matters very little whether hybrids are widespread in the trade.

My 2 cents on the issue anyway...

[Brett]

I tend to agree with you Den, there is a double standard. And the problem is widespread and not just confined to cichlids. Many tetras and barbs, in fact probably most commercially produced ornamental fish are targets for hybridisation. Whilst there is a market for something a bit different, these pressures will be active.

I think the solution lies in education and information. Knowing what you have and the ramifications of hybridisation. There has been a section of the hobby that have tended to villify all hybrids, and I am not sure that this is helpful

Another 2 cents

Cheers
Brett

[Den]

Thanks for all your feedback I think everyone has made a good point.

Mtchye my interpretation of your comments in relation to Discus and angel fish really suggests the fact that because these Hybrid fish have been accepted there is enough information out there for both breeders and general hobbiests to know well enough what is a cross and what is not, however I don't think you could be 100% sure of what is being sold out there is a pure fish, unless your knew for sure it was an F1 from Wild caught or wild caught from a highly trusted source. :wink:

Also Mytche your comment in relation to justifying and comparing the acceptance of Discus to Flower horns due to discus and Angel hybrids being bred from very similar fish actually makes discus and Angel hybrids more difficult to determine- technically a worse situation in my view. Considering that many discus breeders mix wild caughts to strengthen the genes of there highly inbred stock, you then have the exact same problem as you have stated with the Flower horn, a small amount of the colourful prized offspring and a bunch of offspring that look similar to the more blandish wild caught parents, what do you think happens to these fish?.

Considering that most hobbiests are keen to keep cichlid gene pools free from hybridisation it does not seem to apply to discus and Angel fish at all.

The fact is there are many Hybrids out there we know little about due to lack of info, so would it be right to say that trying to ignore them and banning them from being advertised and sold on forums prevents discussion, thus reducing public knowledge and awarness?, I think this current situation of ignorance really only increases the likelyhood of unscrupulous and poorly educated breeders passing on Hybrids to poorly educated and unaware hobbiests.

How ironic. 8O

My 3 cents worth

Regards
Den

[mtchye]

Hi Den,

I think you have slightly misunderstood what I have said. Fact is that no one would really believe that they had a true angel or discus species unless they bought it wild caught from a reliable source. I don't think anyone would be able to tell a cross from a pure specimen at all and in fact one would assume that it is a "hybrid" unless there is strong reason to believe otherwise. Pure aquarium strains are practically non existant and have low demand except amongst specialists and thus any wild blood is used as you say to modify domestic hybrid lines. For all intents and purposes, should one desire a pure species you would have to get it wild caught or from a very select few breeders in the world. Having said that I was also implying that the "species" status of many of the angels and discus is highly dependant on how stringent the conditions are that you place on the definition of a "species" versus variations or strains. This situation where the norm is a hybrid strain means that little or no further damage can be done by hobbyists, as the assumption is that all fish bought are hybrids unless proven otherwise. This is not yet the case for trimacs and other centrals that make up the flowerhorn bloodlines. Thus, hobbyists have great potential to damage pure species bloodlines for those cases. Thus because it is so difficult to differentiate hybrids from pure strains and because of the predominance of hybrids within the hobby for angels and discus, the assumption is that any fish you buy will be a hybrid which is in a way good. If you were to buy a trimac now, the assumption would generally be that it is a pure trimac when this may not be the case any longer with many flowerhorn breeders pumping out similar looking fish.

I do agree with you that discussion of hybrids should be allowed but I have also bore the brunt of a certain section of hobbyists whom brett has mentioned for whom the mention of hybridisation is taboo.

To sum it up, I don't think discussion of hybrids should be disallowed, and it is a grey area in terms of this site. Other sites in australia often hold a much stricter view. THe society is a democracy and hence you are all welcome to bring up these issues at meetings to be discussed with the committee and other members.

My personal view is that with angels and discus most people know what they are getting is most probably a hybrid. With other hybrids this is not always the case. The mistaken identity is where the potential for hybrid lines masquerading as pure and this is where the most damage to the hobby is done in my opinion.

I guess my 4 cents is that hybrids are acceptable as long as it is easily determinable that they are hybrids. That seems to be the case by elimination for angels and discus .. i.e. no one would assume that the average angel or discus is wild caught unless bought from a trusted source.

Cheers
Vincent

[Brett]

Seems like the price of these opinions is going up.

Brett

[Den]

Hi All

Vincent I agree with everthing you have said, I guess the point I am trying to make is that banning Hybrid discussion which many influential people in this hobby either lobby for or impose could be "possibly" making the situation worse.

What you have said regarding Angels and discus gene pools really highlights a disturbing reality, isn't it strange that most hobbiest's would in no way accept this situation from any other cichlid?

Cheers
Den

[Fish Antics]

Can I just say that no one should ban or try to stop open discussion on this topic. It is one of those topics that always generate a lot of comments and some heated discussions at times. A lot of forums and Society’s do ban the sale and advertising for sale of Hybrids for the Reasons Vincent has already gone into.

Hybrid refers to the result of mating a male of one species with a female of another species. We often call this "crossing" two species.
The creation (deliberate or accidental) of hybrids is an important and controversial issue with cichlid aquarists.
Crossing a Texas cichlid, Herichthys cyanoguttatus with a convict, Archocentrus nigrofasciatus would give you a Hybrid:
Hericthys cyanoguttatus x Archocentrus nigrofasciatus

Line or “Selective” inbreeding is to reproduce purebred strains of a species by preserving hereditary characteristics that are desirable, and getting rid of undesirable traits. Also by selective inbreeding, a species' hidden genetic characteristics will appear in the offspring. Many of these traits are generally desired and bred for by aquarists. This form of selective breeding is used by tropical fish breeders because they often hope to build up strains of fish with superior qualities. Usually these traits are caused by an unnatural mutation or a recessive form of a gene(s) which affects the size, coloration and/or finnage of the species.
Crossing a Gold Angel Ptreophyllum Scalare with a Veil Tail Angel Ptreophllum Scalare may give you a veil tail gold Angel but it is still a Ptrerophyllum Scalare.

I think everyone is aware of the reasons against Hybrids. Just do a search on this or any other forum and you will find a long list on the subject. In Line breeding does have its critics:
According to some aquarists inbreeding is an evil thing while other hobbyists seem to believe that an inbreeding philosophy is a neutral thing which is neither good nor bad. To me it depends upon the application in which line breeding, a form of inbreeding, is being applied and the reasons for inbreeding the species. Generally, the idea of selective inbreeding is to reproduce purebred strains of a species by preserving hereditary characteristics that are desirable, and getting rid of undesirable traits. Also by selective inbreeding, a species' hidden genetic characteristics will appear in the offspring. Many of these traits are generally desired and bred for by aquarists. This form of selective breeding is used by tropical fish breeders because they often hope to build up strains of fish with superior qualities. Usually these traits are caused by an unnatural mutation or a recessive form of a gene(s) which affects the size, coloration and/or finnage of the species.
However, with all the desirable characteristics being bred for, the breeder needs to be aware that undesirable traits will be included in the genotype as well. These undesirable genes may cause weakened body metabolisms, hereditary diseases, and congenital abnormalities such as spinal problems and loss of finnage. These situations generally occur because of the breeder's inexperience and the lack of culling undesirable breeding stock and fry. If culling does not occur, and line breeding of these undesirable fish continues, these undesirable traits will occur more frequently in the fry thus severely weakening successive generations. This brings up cross breeding within a species. Cross breeding is when several similarly related strains are bred together to create greater genetic diversity. However, these other strains can have genetic problems that the breeder should be aware of. As with all forms of breeding, the breeder needs to be very selective when choosing breeding stock. One difficulty may be the difficulty in obtaining closely related strains.
Even with desirable purebred strains of a species that show no signs of genetic weakness I still question whether the traits being bred for are beneficial to the species. I also question if these mutations would occur naturally within a population? Although a variety of mutations occur within a species very few of these survive. Even fewer of these natural mutations are caught by humans.

At the end of the day each person buying a fish makes the decision on whether to buy a Hybrid, Aquarium strain or pure blood line species. It is a personal choice. As a club we recognise the danger of Hybrids and therefore try to discourage them by education about the subject.

Tony

[mtchye]

Wow a civilised, informative discussion on hybrids, yay!

What Tony has brought up about line breeding is another issue that warrants discussion. An understanding of genetics helps with these issues and the general welfare of our aquarium fish strains and hopefully the Society has helped in that respect educate many hobbyists regarding inbreeding, linebreeding, and genetic inheritance.

Just to put a spanner in the works regarding angelfish. Some authors are of the opinion that the domestic angelfish is a hybrid of many species or sub species previously thought to be the same by the original collectors so many years ago. That is why Den has mentioned them as an "acceptable" hybrid. The same goes for discus, with many different species currently defined. I guess if you regard them as species, then all our discus and angels are probably hybrids, if you feel they are merely colour variants then they are line bred..

My 5 cents! Finally an amount I can actually collect... Any donators?

[swarvegorilla]

My take is a bit different.

Some people have 'pet' fish
Some people have a chunk of the wild in a tank

Now when you consider someone with pet fish, they don't really mind if there plec is a hybrid as it cleans the glass of algae either way. They don't mind if their mbuna are the hybrid offspring of the first africans they got. They will buy a fish for it's personality not because it is a wildcaught highly sort after colour morph of a cool cichlid going for a good price. They wanna keep 10 different coloured discus or a community tank they can just keep adding interesting oddities too. Petfish come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Some are as they would be in the wild, a b/n or a neon, others are line bred too extremes like black moore goldfish or albino corys, some are hybrids like flowerhorns and blood parrots, others are injected with dies or fed colour enhancing pigments, or hunted down because they appeared on a movie, there capture driven by endless demand...

Morals will always come into play but the availability of any of these bread and butter fish depends on the demand from the public. Luckily it has been a long time since I saw injected fish. Most shops will openly tell you if a species of peacock is a hybrid.

People who focus on natural forms of fish usually research their fish more, therefor know better how to care for it and are more likely to breed their fish. Because breeding is an issue for this type of aquarist they take exception to things that could stuff this up. With africans hybrids and astax dumping are big issues for breeders. They have to be careful.
But they are also evolving their fish over time. those best suited to captivity survive and genes are usually passed on by the largest prettiest male. In a small tank with only one male females hardly have choice in the matter. Just as in the lake when a sand dune shifts and cuts a population of a species in two, so too do captive populations diverge from wild populations. I call this phenomenum the 'german bred' effect.
People who keep biotypes will always have my respect as they put effort into making their fish as comfortable as possible.
Breeding fish is a science, keeping a pet one is more of an art.

one is from venus and one is from mars. Mix the two and most issues vanish.
Well did for me anyway
:wink:

[Brett]

Good points by all

But they are also evolving their fish over time

Have to agree with Swarve on this point. We are all "unintentionally" line breeding our fish, selecting those that will survive and breed in aquariums. Who knows what we are losing, but there is nothing you can do about it.

Cheers
Brett