Re: Mixing Fry(babies) NOT

["Scott Davis" <unclescott at prodigy_net>]

> There will only be about 25 fry, so I don't want to bother with 2 tanks,
and I see no reason why they can't be raised together, but I just want to
make sure incase there is something I don't know!

Hummm. You've pushed one of the hot buttons for most killinuts. :)

Can you tell the females apart at first glance - by body markings, not by
size? At best you will have 25 miscellaneous aquarium strain gardneri. They
can and will cross.

At the worst you will have a few feeder fish.

It is extremely difficult to tell females of some killie species apart.
Strains are even more difficult short of a DNA analysis!

If enough of us raised our gardneri together the strains would be lost -
perhaps for mere eternity.

A lot of these collecting spots from 20-30-40 years ago have been
"developed" (look at American suburbs) and it's hard to collect killies from
the parking lot of a market.

There is then an ethical factor involved in keeping the strains as pure as
possible.

There is a practical side too. A bunch of years ago a nice sized pair of
gardneri labeled gardneri were at auction. The vigorous bidding had already
taken the bag from $2 to $8 when a runner noticed some curious finage on the
male.

The pair was temporarily pulled from the auction. It was determined that
they were some sort of Nsukka - yellow gardneri cross. They returned to the
auction and sold for $3 or $4 as "a nice pair of gardneri aquarium strain".

The person who brought them also had to endure the public embarrassment of
bringing an illegitimate pair of killies to auction. After some years (!) he
developed a reputation as a reliable killie breeder.

Most of us would rather get twice as much money for our fishes (more as a
matter of pride rather than economics). Most of us would rather not have to
wait 5 or 10 years before people trusted us as breeders of reliable strains.

So it is to your own advantage, even to the advantage of your killies and
also to the advantage of the hobby to keep the strains separated.

Do accidents happen? Certainly. Fish of uncertain heritage get fed to large
hungry carnivores, flushed or frozen too.

I remember a group of us even quietly buying up some auction offerings of a
respected old-timer and giving them away to little kids rather than make a
scene about the situation. That was the last time that so-called strain was
seen in Chicago for years though. Never again was a strain of that
gardneri - lacustris - found which bred as readily.

Many of us keep a line of tanks with really different killies and other
fishes. If there are jumpers (despite tight fitting tops) the travelers can
be identified and returned home. (Example there is a biv tank next to a
lineatus tank next to an Aphyosemion tank next to a livebearer tank next to
an Aphanius/Lebias tank.)

A visit to a Medaka (ricefish) research site the other day revealed that the
researchers even used different nets and other implements for different
strains of their medaka. They didn't want to spoil their research when an
egg was moved on a net or siphon tube to a different tank.

We have a dog who owes more to "Our Gang" than the American Kennel Club. He
is a great family pet. But he will never be bred or entered in a dog show
owing to his mixed parentage.

If all you want is a tank of pretty fish, raise whomever together (now with
different species often the faster growers will devour the slower growers.)
But keep those fish in that tank never to be distributed.

All the best!

Scott


---------------
See http://www.aka.org/AKA/subkillietalk.html to unsubscribe
Join the AKA at http://www.aka.org/AKA/Applic.htm