The hybrid Syno thread

[Bas Pels]

I'm not sure, in my first posting (you quoted my reminder) I asked to be corrected if wrong, and I still hope the Synodontus survive the stripping. They do require hormones, usually grounded pituaries of conspecific fish - or related fish (ony could use hybrids for that)

I know carp can survive this handling, but ad far as I know, many don't.

Perhaps, from an environmentally point of view, it might be better to have 2000 fry than 1 not reproducing adult - and for a commercial breeder, this might be the case too - so it could be even a 100 % mortality rate is acceptable for the people using this method.

But please tell me I'm wrong

[jippo]

I've been talking with german breeder who have bred lots of synos(Seegers book says 8 species) and most of them with hormones. He said that female dies always after hormone treatment. I told him about breeding synos with natural ways and he said that he have never think about that option. Of cource there is "The Thing" that we don't know and how can we get them breeding without hormones. I told him little bit of imitating dry season and rainy season and he was very interested about that. But of cource he will continue with hormones because it is so much easier even though he was very sad because he will always loose a female.

But maybe some day we can find that "thing" and we can breed our synos naturally, at least i'm doing my best all the time to solve what it is.

[Carp37]

Thanks for that clarification Jippo- so that's another black mark against hybrids, if one was needed.

[Bas Pels]

Thank you, Jippo.

But, in all honesty, if the breedser would not produce hybrids, but use conspefic sperm, the female would die too

So it is not a black mark for hybrids, but for non-wildcaught Synodontis, I think

[Carp37]

in all honesty, if the breeder would not produce hybrids, but use conspecific sperm, the female would die too

So it is not a black mark for hybrids, but for non-wildcaught Synodontis, I think

There's definitely an element of truth in this, and I definitely feel that the practice would still be unethical at best, but at least if they were producing genuine species rather than what I personally consider to be worthless trash fish, I could at least rationalise the process as the lesser of two evils, by your point that a pair of wild caught fish will produce several hundred fish for the aquarium trade.

Jools' point is right that it doesn't make too much difference to the average aquarist whether their fish are true species or not, but I still can't condone it.

[L number Banana]

Joe Aquarist here,
Not a fan of Hybrid Synos. I had Frank the syno and he was wonderful but as a newbie, I felt duped when I bought him because it took away any chance I would ever have to breed him AND it always made me feel that I couldn't give him the conditions required because there was no way to actually know who his parents were.
I'd rather pay more. And I *think* I happily do when it comes to hatchet fish BUT since I found out that Farlowella are being farmed and hybridized, I no longer want to collect and breed them because I'm not confident enough in my ID to know I'm buying the genuine article.
I would rather do my miniscule part moving the hobby forward by contributing something useful to other hobbyists. What good would it do to find out the conditions necessary to produce hybrid twigs? Nada, nothing, diddly.

I don't have the answers but I hope someday that someone on earth can make a living by protecting a habitat of a fish because we will buy them. Maybe I'm dreaming but would I pay a small fortune for twigs to match my non-hybrids? YES.

Here's a bad picture of Frank the Hybrid both in Jan and June 2009.

There are a few LFS making an effort by posting something in their shops that says No to glowfish, tattooed fish and other such monsters. It's a start because a newbie like me might see it and ask about it. I'll see if I can find the link to the organization/boycott or whatever it's called. It's in the USA.

[Jools]

Here is a video of my ones:



Jools

[Haavard Stoere]

Is this S. petricola or S. lucipinnis? (klikk the text below picture to view full size) Is it hybrid or real? From what I have learned from this thread it seems real, and a bargain at around 7-8 euros if the picture mathes the product of course.
http://www.tanganyika-cichlider.dk/prod ... ucts_id=39

[MatsP]

If the fish is really what the picture shows, it's indeed a genuine species (or a VERY good copy) in my view - however, wait for Richard or one of the other real experts.

--
Mats

[Haavard Stoere]

Maybe I should go on a fish smuggling weekend to Denmark and buy 20 of them

[Richard B]

Is this S. petricola or S. lucipinnis? (klikk the text below picture to view full size) Is it hybrid or real? From what I have learned from this thread it seems real, and a bargain at around 7-8 euros if the picture mathes the product of course.
http://www.tanganyika-cichlider.dk/prod ... ucts_id=39

The pic in the link (on the left of where it says 65,00 DKK) is a generic pic that has been used in many adverts & i highly doubt that this is the a pic taken by the seller - it is a petricola, but i'd want to see pics of the ACTUAL fish before i released any cash

[Richard B]

Is this S. petricola or S. lucipinnis? (klikk the text below picture to view full size) Is it hybrid or real? From what I have learned from this thread it seems real, and a bargain at around 7-8 euros if the picture mathes the product of course.
http://www.tanganyika-cichlider.dk/prod ... ucts_id=39

The pic in the link (on the left of where it says 65,00 DKK) is a generic pic that has been used in many adverts & i highly doubt that this is the a pic taken by the seller - it is a petricola, but i'd want to see pics of the ACTUAL fish before i released any cash

http://www.scotcat.com/articles/article30.htm

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~reeber/aquarium.html

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/view ... 3bc9de4983

http://www.thatpetplace.com/pet/prod/217057/product.web

http://diszhal.info/english/catfishes/e ... ricola.php

[Richard B]

Here is a video of my ones:



Jools

Nice vid Jools - how big is the fish? It looked a bit 'stumpy' to begin with but then as it turned it 'became' a more expected shape

[Jools]

Hi Richard,

They don't appear to be misshapen at present - trick of the video angle I think. I bought them (4 @ £3.99 each) at around 2cm SL, 9 months later they are now past 7cm.

Jools

[Richard B]

Hi Richard,

They don't appear to be misshapen at present - trick of the video angle I think. I bought them (4 @ £3.99 each) at around 2cm SL, 9 months later they are now past 7cm.

Jools

No, sorry i didn't mean mishapen at all it is indeed the angle the fish starts off at - that is good money - i think the 6cm one i got was nearly £18

[Jools]

Just to say have been in (email) contact with a chap called Victor who has sent some Syno pics that appear to be hybrids - one of them the S. galinae thing. I've asked him to post pics here for discussion.

Jools

[Viktor Jarikov]

As advertized by Jools, here are the two he asked me to post.
(They are also posted and discussed in the what's my catfish? forum.)
Viktor

[Viktor Jarikov]

he is about 8 inches

[Viktor Jarikov]

this one is about 4-5 inches

[Viktor Jarikov]

Forgot to mention, the bigger galinae (?) has a somewhat deformed, assymetric head and mouth - birth trauma, injury, or something. Of course, I do not know, I got him only a month ago from a private owner.

[Birger]

this one is about 4-5 inches

Fish #2 Interesting shape...but hybrid

[Birger]

Forgot to mention, the bigger galinae (?) has a somewhat deformed, assymetric head and mouth - birth trauma, injury, or something. Of course, I do not know, I got him only a month ago from a private owner.

Can I ask why you think this is S.galinae?

[Viktor Jarikov]

Richard B. was the first to suggest that in the original post "whats my cat?"
Jools agrees: see email thread:

Hi Viktor, The point I think is that S. galinae isn't itself genuine and is a
marketed form of S. eupterus. No idea if it is a hybrid or just
selective breeding, but I think it should be placed in S. euptera as a
manmade form (like a balloon variety). It is no new species having
been described also in grey literature I think. I would even go as far
as to place S. galinae in synonymy with S. euptera, but I am unclear
on how this works with hybrids. Cheers, Jools
---
Hi Jools, ...As Mats and Richard B. figured out, I have two euptera but I know the one Richard B. called S. galinae - that's the one you want, the bigger one. NB (!): There is a disagreement at this point (see the post) whether he is genuine or a hybrid euptera. Best wishes, Viktor
---
Hi Viktor, We might be interested in the pictures of what you are calling S. notatus and S. euptera. Both look like hybrids to me, the latter appears to be the thing described in Russia as S. galinae. Could I suggest you post a few pictures here and if they are new hybrids then we would like to use the pictures. I am ccing Mats who adds most of the pictures these days too so he knows what I've suggested. Cheers, Jools

[Richard B]

The fish called galinae is a hybrid IMHO, but it has supposedly been described to science but most people seem to think this is highly dubious. (The same with helenae, which is a colour variant of nigrita or something similar - it is very pale or yellow & has been called banana cats, custard cats in UK shops)

The pic in seegars of 'Galinae' shows the abnormally blunt head.

[Birger]

Sorry I did not put the two threads together...I have to stop answering posts early in the morning. I know the hows and whys of the galinae, was just wondering how you (Victor) came to that conclusion, thanks for the explanation.

Birger

[Jools]

I had said to Viktor in the past that I though this might be a captive produced S. ocellifer - however, now I've had a better look at the pictures, I can see the dorsal fin shape and patterning isn't even close to what it should be, so I do now agree there's a hybrid in there somewhere.

Jools

[Viktor Jarikov]

Hi Jools, I may be wrong but for now I presume you are confusing two different fishes of mine - my latest email (which was the late, after-thought reply to your first email to me) was concerned with the fish I initially named longirostris and you said with an apparent certainty that it is an ocellifer, if I understood you correctly.

Yet, everyone else in the "what's my cat? post" called him a hybrid (although the more I am trying to learn here, the more I get confused to some degree about the important differences between genuine, genuine w/c, genuine captive bred, pure, hybrid, hybrid in n-th gereneration, hybrid bred to look like genuine, man-made hybrid, man-made variety, etc.). {{{{{{{Hi Jools, People in the forum seemed to agree that the one I called "longirostris" certainly looks like a hybrid to them. Do you still assert he is a genuine ocellifer? Viktor. Your latest reply: Depends what you mean by genuine. If you mean wild caught then no. He's probably a captive produced S. occellifer - possibly with hybrid parents. Cheers, Jools}}}}}}.

The photos of the "longirostris/ocellifer" are again below (same are in the whats my cat post). This is the one you indicated NO interest of getting/using the pics of. You only asked me to post here what I called notatus and the larger eupterus=the subject of this ongoing discussion (both I named wrongly, of course - I just had to name them something when sending the pictures). Best, Viktor.

[MatsP]

Let's try to get the definitions cleared up. I'm not saying what I write here is the ONLY possible definition, so I'd wait for one or a few people to say "I agree with that" or "let's define X as A B C".

genuine:
A true species - matches what the label says it is.

genuine w/c
Genuine as above, which is captured in the wild - "W/C" means "wild caught".

genuine captive bred
Genuine as above, which has been bred by hobbyist or commercial breeder. This fish is NOT wild-caught. Captive bred is also often called "Tank bred".

pure
Not a hybrid, of pure origin. Both parents are the same species and/or variety.

hybrid
The parents are not the same species, creating a mixture of two different species.

hybrid in n-th gereneration
Hybrid species that has more than one generation of mixing in the heritage. At least one of the parents of this particular generation was a hybrid - and normally one assumes ALL generations are hybrids when using this term. Often this involves mixing hybrids with different species as the parents, to create an even more messed up offspring.

hybrid bred to look like genuine
A hybrid that is intentionally bred in a way as to make it look like a genuine species. The producer of this fish is trying to replicate key characteristics that identify the genuine species.

man-made hybrid
Not naturally occurring hybrid - a hybrid species produced in a laboratory/breeding facility. As far as I'm aware, with regards to Synodontis, ALL known hybrids are man-made.

man-made variety
This is usually referring to variants of fish that have been line-bred to fix some naturally occuring variation, such as longer fins (veiltail and such), "balloon body" or colour variants (albino or melanistics [all black/brown forms]). Goldfish is a good example here, where most of the fish you find in a LFS have one or more "alterations" to the natural form.

--
Mats

[Viktor Jarikov]

Mats, thank you for not sparing your time and fingers! Viktor

[Richard B]

Mats - i agree with all the definitions & thank you for your efforts on this