Tropical Fish Hobbyist

[PaulineMi]

Just received the April 2013 issue of TFH.  The featured fish photo this month is the Celestial Pearl Danio.  The table of contents picture is very pretty.  The featured picture is a two page spread with a small blurb about the species.

[BallAquatics]

I just love using Debian Linux.  Please note how similar the desktop is compared to Windows in the photo below.....



Dennis

[sschind]

Just received the April 2013 issue of TFH.  The featured fish photo this month is the Celestial Pearl Danio.  The table of contents picture is very pretty.  The featured picture is a two page spread with a small blurb about the species.

They are certainly a beautiful little fish but personally I have never had much luck with them.  All of the ones I have ever gotten were thin and very stressed out.  None ever made it longer than 3 or 4 weeks for me.  Certainly none ever looked like the picture in this thread.  They were on my list again this week and I was tempted but other things took priority.

[BallAquatics]

All of the ones I have ever gotten were thin and very stressed out.  None ever made it longer than 3 or 4 weeks for me.

Steve, sounds like all the wild caught CPD's I have purchased.  I can usually get 8 or 10 out of a dozen to make it by feeding them live foods.  BBS, daphnia, walter worms, etc.  Even if you get them to survive, you almost never see the wild ones as they are super timid and hide constantly.

Dennis

[BillT]

Steve, sounds like all the wild caught CPD's I have purchased.

I have seen two kinds of these fish behaviorally.
One hang out mid-water and do not seem very worried about things going on around them.
The other like to be near the bottom and hid a lot. I would guess these are wild caught or perhaps have genetically inherited behaviors of the wild fish.

Fish bred a few generations in tanks will tend to lose these behaviors because those fish that are less terrified will eat more, and being less stressed will grow and breed better and will have better immune system function. This results in more of their progeny in each next generation.
There is a lot of inadvertent selection going on in laboratory, aquarium, and fish farm breeding.


Some people like the wild caught fish because they are more "real" or interesting behaviorally or something.
Others like a fish that is easier to watch or might have fancier colors.
My tastes vary depending on many things.

I sell fish to labs. Some want fish that are robust and easy to breed (usually a line crossed among several different sources so they are genetically more varied) and perhaps selected for particular husbandry traits. Others want fish from a single wild source so they have a simpler genetic situation to deal with and analyze.

A similar situation.

[BallAquatics]

Fish bred a few generations in tanks will tend to lose these behaviors because those fish that are less terrified will eat more, and being less stressed will grow and breed better and will have better immune system function. This results in more of their progeny in each next generation.
There is a lot of inadvertent selection going on in laboratory, aquarium, and fish farm breeding.

I just listened to Charles Clapsaddle from Goliad Farms talk about this the other day.  Charles is a geneticist and has some very cool insights into fish breeding.  The show is around an hour long.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wm-aquaculture/2013/02/25/fish-farms-goliad-farms

Dennis

[PaulineMi]

The CPDs I had seemed to be a happy little group that hung out in the right side top third of the 55 gallon community tank. The tank was low light, planted, with dark driftwood. The spot they liked had a big clump of Java moss growing on the top portion of the driftwood close to the surface. They swam around, exploring and showing off for each other.

Other fish in the tank included six dwarf neon rainbowfish and six diamond tetras, both very active species. I assumed that the CPDs that I had were exhibiting "normal" behavior.

[BillT]

I just listened to Charles Clapsaddle from Goliad Farms talk about this the other day.  Charles is a geneticist and has some very cool insights into fish breeding.  The show is around an hour long.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wm-aquaculture/2013/02/25/fish-farms-goliad-farms

Listened to this last night. The genetics was great.
I also liked his water system description. Guess you can do big things in warm places with green houses.

[sschind]

If I am going to breed the fish I don't mind WC but if its just for a showpiece then I would prefer CB.  I guess I'm a bit of a hypocrite because I won't deal with WC reptiles or amphibians but I do sell WC fish.  If I could I'd get CB fish but a lot of the unique ones are not available.  Not many loaches are CB and they are some of my favorites.

Luckily there are a lot of people breeding cichlids and I am fortunate to live in an area with several shows a year.  If I really wanted to I could stock up, I can't really afford it though as my customers tend to sit at the beginner end of the spectrum.  I did sell 60 bucks worth of julis that I bred myself  and some C brichardi today to a couple of guys who just found my store on line.  That's always a good thing.

I may have to look a bit harder at the Greenwater swap in a couple of weeks and certainly atthe GCCA in April.  You can't sell them if you don't have them right?

[BallAquatics]

I was perusing my April edition of TFH last night and ran across this photo again.  It hit me that the fish in the photo is NOT a CPD!  I've probably stirred up a hornet's nest, but this is what I posted to the TFH forum.....

In the April 2013 issue on page 20-21 is a photo of what claims to be a Celestial Pearl Danio. I'm thinking it's a cross between Danio margaritatus and Danio erythromicron.

The fish in the photo displays the transparent red fins and dark spot at the base of the tail just like Danio erythromicron. These are not typical Danio margaritatus features. The spots on the fishes sides also looks like photos I've seen of crosses between the two fish. Look at any of the hundreds of photos of Celestial Pearl Danios available on the Internet and you will quickly see what I'm referring to.

Dennis

It will be interesting to hear their response.....

Dennis

[PaulineMi]

Good catch.  They should issue a correction.

[BillT]

Very cool Dennis.
I find it interesting that when someone points out something like this it is common to say "Wow, why didn't I notice that?". In retrospect, looking at the picture, it seems obvious.

Do you know if these hybrids are fertile?

The most common thing you hear about Danio hybrids is that they are not fertile.
This has been looked at a bit in labs and that is what they have reported, but I think that is usually crosses where zebrafish were one side of the cross. The seriously fish website claims that there are hybrids of the pearl (Danio albolineatus) and rosy danios (Danio roseus). Not clear if these are fertile or not.

[BallAquatics]

Do you know if these hybrids are fertile?

Bill, I do not.  While I am generally against indiscriminate cross breeding of fish, I am very tempted to try and spawn some of these mutts!  If I was to raise some, would you be interested in some for experimental reasons?

Dennis

[PaulineMi]

Dennis does the fish in the background of the photo appear to be a pure CPD?

[BallAquatics]

Dennis does the fish in the background of the photo appear to be a pure CPD?

Yes it does.  It looks like a male to me, judging by the coloration of the anal fin. 

It is funny just as Bill alluded to, I've probably looked at that photo a half a dozen times since the April issue came out, and then last night it hit me like a ton of bricks that something just wasn't right with the fish in the photo.  It is a very striking fish though!

Dennis