breeding questions

[BillT]

I am interested in how people manage their breeding stocks of their fish. I have different kinds of fish which I breed differently depending on what I want to do.

An example of different goals might be in trying to breed for some trait vs. trying to maintain a pure line.

What are the trade offs people do between?:
1) small easy to handle populations, which can get inbred easily vs.
2) large populations that will be more difficult to handle but will get inbred less
3) importing fish into your breeding program (crossing in their genetics)
4) are you worried about losing your line by some accident:
4A) Do you keep separate tanks of the same fish as a back-up?
4B) How many generations of fish do you keep (in case one generation dies)?

What are your goals?
1) line purity
2) maintaining some particular set of features
3) making something new

[BallAquatics]

What are the trade offs people do between?:
1) small easy to handle populations, which can get inbred easily vs.
2) large populations that will be more difficult to handle but will get inbred less

I generally try to follow the guidelines set forth in this guide available on The North American Native Fishes Association WEB site.  It details how to take a small group of fish and develop a breeding program that will produce good results over the lifetime of the hobbyists, (40 years).

Captive breeding guidelines ==> http://www.nanfa.org/captivecare/captive_breeding_guidelines.pdf

3) importing fish into your breeding program (crossing in their genetics)

When fish are readily available, I sometimes do this.  If you have a good line established great care must be taken so as not to introduce a weakness into your line.  Just because it's new blood doesn't mean that it's a good thing to introduce it into your lines.



4) are you worried about losing your line by some accident:
4A) Do you keep separate tanks of the same fish as a back-up?
4B) How many generations of fish do you keep (in case one generation dies)?

Always.  In a perfect world I have a tank with my wild caught breeders, one or two tanks of my very best F1's for latter use, and grow-out tanks of other F1's raised for sale.



What are your goals?

My main goal is always to preserve the fish as close to wild caught specimens as possible.  Not bigger or stronger or faster, but the same.  For example, when someone purchases some of my CPD's, I want to pass on healthy tanks raised fish that look just like their wild relatives.

In recent memory I have  worked on different colors of freshwater dwarf shrimp, and a 'Blue' line of Leopard Danios, but this is mostly for my own entertainment and none have ever been sold on.

Dennis

[BillT]

I generally try to follow the guidelines set forth in this guide available on The North American Native Fishes Association WEB site.  It details how to take a small group of fish and develop a breeding program that will produce good results over the lifetime of the hobbyists, (40 years).

Captive breeding guidelines ==> http://www.nanfa.org/captivecare/captive_breeding_guidelines.pdf

This looks interesting, I'll have to read it fully later.

My main goal is always to preserve the fish as close to wild caught specimens as possible.  Not bigger or stronger or faster, but the same.  For example, when someone purchases some of my CPD's, I want to pass on healthy tanks raised fish that look just like their wild relatives.

Several years ago I started a line of wild zebrafish in a lab called Nadia (from an India village named Nadia) and handed them off to a population biologist who was interested in their undomesticated "wild" behavior. These behaviors included: A) fleeing to the back of a tank when someone approached it to feed them and B) when feeding mostly staying at a more mid-water level and occasionally dashing to the surface to get a piece of food and then immediately diving back to more mid-water levels.
Both of these are predator avoidance behaviors and are selected against in the captive environment. Unless they were selected for continuously genes for more efficient captive environment feeding behaviors will be selected for over the generations. Another possible solution would be to rapidly inbreed the line so that the genetics will not be able to change, because no genetic variability will be left. This would be making a change to prevent a different kind of a change.

[Mugwump]

In Angelfish,we find many phenotypes to work with in our hatcheries. When dealing with wild stock, it is primarily to strengthen a particular line. Also, Wild stock can be bred for a 'true' line themselves.
  I believe that most angelfish keepers try to develope lines based on phenotype, apprearance. The phenotypes are obtained by knowing the genotype, and breeding for the genes that produce the desired phenotype characteristics..usually color/finage type/gene make up for future lines and crosses. Knowing the angels genes allows for pairings that will either give different phenotype/genotypes, or being able to continue our lines with predetermined success.
  Myself, when developing various lines, will have at least two additional lines at the same time. This will give me a more diverse gene pool from which to select the angels that exibit the things that I'm breeding for..whether it's finage/body shape/over all color coverage,etc, I'm able to mix/match/combine offspring lines to further my desired out come. then phase out the undesired line and start a new one with the combo genes. This will continue with new lines being obtained by the results of the previous pairings. I begin these projects with unrelated pairings, so the sibling crosses of the various lines are providing fresh results. An occasional back cross will reinforce and strengthen desired results as the progress advances. Using this technique and having access to fry/juvies/adults selected along the way, I have a backup, and another avenue of pursuit, should a pairing along the way not bring what I expected, or was looking for...I can go back and recross in a new direction. This is the fun of breeding...watching your own progress as you strive for an Angelfish that has just what you like...
   Also, after 3-4 generations, you can wild cross a line and bring it back quicker,than starting from scratch... 

.....
not sure what numbers of the questions were...LOL..but many tanks are involved and isolation of the crosses is a must until selecting the nominees for future pairings,etc...backups are available..lines are kept pure within their genotype...something new is the project...losing the line by accident is nil...the populations are controlled by selection and selling,etc the balance of the fish, also, in some cases culling is used to control population and undesired results...

[Frank The Plumber]

I breed angelfish.
I breed for myself first. I breed to have the best I can obtain for myself. Every other fish is shared but it's me first. This keeps your quality in the place you want it. Especially if you are very anal .
I develop a cabinet of influences. I try to have fish of clean trait presentation that I can add into a mixture to create a nice new combination of expressions. Keeping quality ingredient stock is essential to this direction. Backing up and holding a few high quality examples of ingredient stock means that you can redo anything that you ever have done. You can also redose a certain trait into a fish line. This of course requires space to do.
When developing lines it is best to examine what other trait types may benefit from this lineage path. You then run multiple lines that enable each other. By running multiple traits of half black for example you keep your half black in a better condition by out crossing your half black silver to your half black blush or your half black blue that to introduce a non half black type fish. You achieve dilution yet maintain your traits. From this cross you may then take the fish produced and inject this out cross strength into the established line without much bi product odd looking fish which become culls in many cases.
In the realm of wild type or species specific fish the plan becomes one of non variation and the influence of new yet not different genes a record of the standard of this fish needs to be archived so that if there are variations from the standard that this can be corrected. We must also address or responsibility of not introducing these varied fish into the population. We can destroy whole captive species in this way, some fish are not replaceable.
The most critical thing is to formulate some sort of a plan that you hold to. Slap the hand that picks willy nilly every odd bag of every odd type of fish that need various and drastic different environs that you might have trouble maintaining. Choose fish that work together and make yourself a system that enables this to be enjoyable.
Like any other thing in life discipline is the foremost key to overall success. Enjoy.

[Mugwump]

Frank, it looks like you and I are traveling very similar paths in breeding. In a nutshell. know your fish...and be true to your plan...I'm not so much interested in the 'latest and greatest' as in maintaining, and strengthening, what I keep and/or am developing. The important thing is strong healthy fish.....Stephen Stills' "Love the one your with".......

[BallAquatics]

... Do do do do do do to do, da da da!

Dennis

[Mugwump]

[Frank The Plumber]

Yup. I think so too.