Bristlenose Genetics

[jjkolodz]

Has anyone figured out the genetics behind the long fins of the common bristlenose? If I have a pair of short finned bristlenose that came from long finned parents will some of their offspring have long fins?

[MatsP]

I don't know the answer to that, but I would hazard a guess on "Yes".

--
Mats

[Barbie]

I guess I'm going to buck the trend and say "no". When I crossed a short fin standard albino bristlenose with a long fin albino bristlenose, some of the resulting brown fry were long finned. That tells me that it's a dominant characteristic that only requires one copy of the gene to show the trait. One spawn is not exactly a true test of that theory though ;).

Barbie

[jc]

Barbie,
actually your experience could also mean that the long fin genes is recessive, i.e. the short fin parent could have a recessive long fin gene

[apistomaster]

The genetics of the common varieties of the busy nose aren't really well worked out.
I have compared notes with Barbie because we have experience with different combinations of traits in our bushy nose bred by us.
The long fin gene may not be an example of traditional simple Medelian genetics. I think it is partially dominant. That makes predictions much more complicated until someone actually carries out the necessary experiments long enough to develop the exact ways the different traits are expressed.
So far, I have only carried out the crossing of the normal fin trait in the albino X normal, then sibling F1 crosses.
The F2 results of crossing the siblings produced the predicted 25% Normal, 50% Heterozygous for both albino and normal; these are normal in phenotype but carry the albino gene, and 25% Normal in both phenotype and genotype. This is Medelian genetics at it's simplest.

When Barbie crossed long fin Albino with short fin albino I believe she got all normal colored fish and some with and some without the long fin traits. This indicates to me that the albino gene is in a different loci on each albino form and the long fin trait is not linked to the albino trait; it also being on a different loci. That Barbie's fish were normal colored would also seem to prove that there were two independent albino strains or even different species involved in the beginning.

I think once the proper experimental crossings are done the results will be very similar to those found in aquarium strains of Angelfish.
The aquarium strains of Angelfish are thought to involve more than one species,with Pterophyllum scalare being the primary contributor of the genes. There are only three scientifically recognized species of angelfish but it is expected that there are a few more undescribed species. Which were involved originally other than P. scalare is not yet known. This is much the same boat we are in with the fish we are calling Ancistrus sp. 3. Although there may be more specific knowledge about the original wild fish, it apparently was never well documented in time to be able to safely describe the existing aquarium strain as that species.

[Barbie]

No, my short fin fish are stock I've been hauling around the country for 10 years. Long before they started selling so many long fins. There is absolutely no chance that my shortfin fish have a long fin gene.

Barbie