Re: [Killietalk] Commercial imports; what to label them?

["Richard Pierce" <rwpierce at att_net>]

Hi John,

The usefulness of collection codes or at least locality names has been
increasingly recognized by livebearer keepers and cichlid keepers.  A large
percentage  of the fish you see in pet stores are commercially bred in fish
farms in Florida or Asia, and many are hybrids.  This is especially true for
many malawian cichlids, livebearers, and rainbowfishes.  Many farm-raised
fish are also treated with hormones to increase their color.  While these
fish are acceptable for many people, eventually those who want to breed and
observe the fish may become disenchanted with these fish.  Hybrid fish may
not exhibit natural breeding behaviors and coloration of the young may not
resemble the wild fish.  Much of the hobby around fancy livebearers,
angelfish and discus revolves around selective breeding and most of the fish
are also likely to be hybrids.  There is nothing wrong with this approach,
it is a matter of personal taste.

As people become more specialized keepers of certain groups of fish there
also seems to be an inevitable pull towards keeping the wild forms.  To get
these fish, you want to know where they came from, and that there is a good
chance that they are actually what the seller claims them to be.  If you
purchase your killies from AKA members, for example, you are more likely to
get unhybridized fish with a good record of the pedigree of the fish.

Most of us do assume that there will be some "unnatural selection" occurring
in our fishrooms, but the fish are not evolving into new species in the
matter of a few generations.  If I keep the collection code with a fish, I
can trade fish from the same collection with others who keep the fish to
help keep the genetic diversity within the population.  I can be sure that
the offspring of these fish are not hybrids.  Without a collection code,
breeding with fish from others becomes a crap shoot, as was previously
stated. I say that we assume that there is some "unnatural selection" as
this has not been proven.  In fact many killifish seem to have remarkably
stable genomes and breed true without deformities decades after being
introduced.  Thus you cannot assume that the fish in your fishroom has
changed in only 5 or 10 years.  Even if we observe changes in the
appearance, it is possible that phenotype changes do not reflect genotype
changes.  Changes in coloration, size and finnage extension can be caused by
the type of food fed and by husbandry practices.

In the end, it is up to you to decide if you want to keep collection codes
or not.  You will find that if you want to sell your offspring, fish with
collection codes will often bring in more money than those without.  You are
also free to hybridize fish in your fishroom as much as you want, but our
ethical code requires that you honestly describe the fish you pass on.
Killie keepers are a small community and if you get a reputation for passing
on hybrid or poor-quality fish, you may find that people may not want any of
your fish.

Best wishes,
Rich Pierce



-----Original Message-----
From: killietalk-bounces at aka_org [mailto:killietalk-bounces at aka_org]On
Behalf Of John Jabba
Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 2:06 PM
To: killietalk at aka_org
Subject: Re: [Killietalk] Commercial imports; what to label them?


HI;
   I have been following the series of posts on collection codes and I am
trying to understand the logic about maintaining them.  To my way of
thinking, after a given species has been kept and bred in your fishroom for
a couple of generations the collection code is no longer valid for this
particular pair and its offspring should take on a code relating to your
fishroom. After all its native biotope is now that of a location in your
house.

I wouldn't think that there is ever any likelihood of ever taking any
species back to the original collecting point to possibly repopulate it. I
have kept and bred many different fish over the years; Angels, Guppies,
Barbs, Cichlids, Discus, etc etc,and I don't see this kind of concentration
on a code relating to an original collecting point for these fish so why is
it done for my new love, Killifish.

John J

Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 16:34:21 -0400
From: "Ken"
Subject: Re: [Killietalk] Commercial imports; what to label them?
To: "'killifish discussion list'"

I'm not t all against codes or labeling, as anyone who has received my fish
or visited my home can testify; when it comes to labeling and "isolation",
I'm either paranoid, schitzo, or both :-) (fancy/detailed labels are my
thing!)

...anyway, the whole point of codes/labeling is genetic
integrity/identification...my crystal ball tells me; once it becomes
cheap/easy to do; labeling per DNA/genetic "Code" in some manner is the
logical way to go...all else is really moot (if indeed genetic purity is the
only reason for comprehensive labeling)

Goals: understood we all got individual goals, but gotta admit there is some
hobby centric peer pressure & defacto unwritten/written codes of ethics
we/most follow...and those "rules" are indeed centered around some kind of
less visible goal(s),(or the behaviors these rules govern are near
pointless)...

My thoughts were: w/o a clear understanding of exactly what we are trying to
accomplish through using codes & standards, any implementation thereto is
relatively inefficient/meaningless unless the effort is concerted, widely
practiced and understood what it is we are supposed to accomplish
..Basically, other that I.D and therefore "dollar value", I'm not really
certain

....pardon the slight soapbox journey there ;-)

KC





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