PlanetCatfish.com

AndiH wrote:Thank you for the explanations. They do indeed make sense. I've tried to find somplace that says if C panda and C schultzei are cross fertile, but can find nothing.

Anecdotal, but I've kept both together and had spawnings, but no interbreeding. Panda bred panda, schulzei to schulzei. Though I can tell you they both like to eat each other's eggs...

Granted, this is mixed groups, male and female of both. Can't tell you what would happen if you only a male panda and female schulzei in a tank. But I do believe, from everything I've seen, that cories will not interbreed if they have options, even if they can. Your task would be to do the science and hands-on research to define these possibilities. Which may be a valid scientific endeavor to further understand the species, even if others believe it to be an abomination of nature. Kinda like my neighbor's alien neanderthal teenager breeding with any known human female...

Jeff

Coryologist wrote:I do miss the money, but I also sleep much better at night, knowing that I am not a party to creating any "Frankenfish."

Except albinism is not a "Frankenfish" by any means. It's merely a color morph. Neither is a long fin variety any kind of a hybrid. Both likely occur naturally, but these fish stand out and get eaten before reproducing.

Angels and Guppies get mentioned as hybrids quite often, but they aren't. Whether black, gold, silver, hybrid ghost, Phillipine blue or whatever, angels are pterophyllum scalare. There are no hybrids between p. scalare, p. altum and p. leopoldi, they are all p. scalare.

One issue with cories is that, because of identification issues, c. aneus and c. panda and c. schulzei could actually all be the same fish, incorrectly named. This is especially true of some of the c numbers (not likely with the three mentioned), and species get reclassifed all the time.

Jeff

jeff@zina.com wrote:Except albinism is not a "Frankenfish" by any means. It's merely a color morph. Neither is a long fin variety any kind of a hybrid. Both likely occur naturally, but these fish stand out and get eaten before reproducing.

They are and they aren't. It's a matter of opinion - they are clearly not the "natural form" -> FrankenFIsh. But they are not as bad as for example Syno hybrids produced by breeders using hormone injections and mixing different species in an effort to produce large numbers of pretty fishes and make lots of money.

Long fin traits and albino traits do indeed happen in nature, but they are, as you say, subject to higher predation, and thus less likely to reproduce.

--
Mats

racoll wrote:

Because they are.

Depends what you mean by "accepted".

I do think there is a difference in viewpoint. The biggest English forum that I can find has people from all over the globe. There is discussion on strains off native, genetics, how to tell ELB N from ELB K, etc.

The difference may be that ELBs are 1 species whereas Corys are hundreds.

After long, hard thought I joined Poecilia, the dutch lifebearer association in 2008. Why the hard thought? Poecilia, just as virtually all other lifebearer culbs, has a lot of people who specialize in guppies.

Guppies are hybridised, line bred, in order to obtain certain results. These people keep fish just as I do, but for the rest? their hobby is as different from mine as people who keep fishting dogs. In my eyes, that is.

Acceptance within guppie keepers does - to my - not say much about acceptance within other groups of fish keepers.

Perhaps catfish people, just as cich lid keepers are the people most against hybridising, but in that case, so be it

AndiH wrote:I do fail to understand why anyone would go so far as hormone treatments on fish.

Simple -- Money. Kids like Glo-Fish(tm) and mommies buy them. You'd be surprised what has been injected into various food fish...

Jeff

MatsP wrote:Long fin traits and albino traits do indeed happen in nature, but they are, as you say, subject to higher predation, and thus less likely to reproduce.

But they are still natural variations, and still not hybrids.

Has anyone actually seen or created a cory hybrid? I'm not sure it has happened, or even can happen.

Jeff

jeff@zina.com wrote:

MatsP wrote:Long fin traits and albino traits do indeed happen in nature, but they are, as you say, subject to higher predation, and thus less likely to reproduce.

But they are still natural variations, and still not hybrids.

Has anyone actually seen or created a cory hybrid? I'm not sure it has happened, or even can happen.

Jeff

Yes, we even have hybrid pictures in the Cat-eLog.

I have maintained and bred Corydoras for more than 40 years. I wil carefully enter this discussion and attempt to only state what I have witnessed with my own eyes. Within the last week we have been experiencing storms and many barometric pressure changes. Ideal times to do water changes and encourage Corydoras to spawn. I maintain several species of Caorydoras and some reside two species to a tank.
This week I have witnessed Corydoras shultzi "black" and C. gossi scattering eggs in the same tank...50 gallon breeder size...C sterbai and C duplicarius in a similar size tank doing the same. This is not the first time and probably not the last. I have never identified a "hybrid" in the fry that I have raised to the size where I trade/sell/gift the young.
I do NOT keep my similar species in tanks together...C. sterbai & C Gossi....S. barbatus and S. Kronei...With the truely uncertain origin of the "Black" cory I keep them away from anything of the C. aeneus "clan".
I do not keep any Aspidoras together...for me they are many that need a
scientific analysis to ID.
I would be very interested in records of hybrids for the purpose of understanding the closeness of the species. This would not be to say I encourage hybridization...only that the information could lend itself to adding knowledge.


Thanks Have a great day
Ironhead

This turned up in a batch of fry the other day.

jeff@zina.com wrote:Except albinism is not a "Frankenfish" by any means. It's merely a color morph. Neither is a long fin variety any kind of a hybrid. Both likely occur naturally, but these fish stand out and get eaten before reproducing.

That may be, but the fish I posted pics of, will never be seen in the wild, and in my opinion, they certainly are "Frankenfish." Cheers. - Frank

Coryologist wrote:

jeff@zina.com wrote:Except albinism is not a "Frankenfish" by any means. It's merely a color morph. Neither is a long fin variety any kind of a hybrid. Both likely occur naturally, but these fish stand out and get eaten before reproducing.

That may be, but the fish I posted pics of, will never be seen in the wild, and in my opinion, they certainly are "Frankenfish." Cheers. - Frank

I'd have to agree with this, although I think we're in the minority- I personally think albino, balloon, and long-fin strains of fish are, if anything, worse then hybrids!

Regarding endlers, though, I've never seen a true strain fish- all the fish I've seen in shops and at auctions have been hybrids. I must confess I do own class K endlers (i.e. hybrids), mainly as an indicator species of water quality in bristlenose tanks, but I'd much rather they weren't hybrids...

That's cool, would be interested in a pic once it grows up a bit.

Cheers,

Jools

I'd just like to post about another species that can produce albinos. This is a picture of an albino C. venezuelanus along with others of the same species that I received from Coryologist several years ago. I've been breeding them for at least two generations but have never seen another albino among them.

Earlier someone said that hybrid cories are unnatural thats why we shouldnt breed hybrids. So going by that logic this person is against toy breed dogs. Or well any domestic dog really... dometicated cats... well okay MOST domesticated animals.... and long finned bettas right? Oh and they must live in a cave too... as well houses are MAN MADE and not natural....

And other point was that it makes identification difficult.... well do you like cross breed dogs, cats, horses, cattle ect??? same thing and what about HUMANS we are cross bred between races. and what about HYBRID dogs (husky wolf, lab wolf ect)


Sorry but I do not see anything wrong with breeding hybrids if the young are happy and healthy... AND YOU ARE UPFRONT about what the offspring is.

I dont mean to offend but I am against line breeding in dogs cats horses and bettas. And to me this is just creating the same thing. INBRED fish with health problems and deformities. I know I am going to be HATED for this but unless someone can come up with REAL reasons why not to breed hybrids theres NOTHING wrong with it at all... in fact thats HOW we got MOST domestic animals now....hybrids and cross breeds.

Hi,

unfortunately, your line of argument does not hold.

Crossing different breeds of dogs, horses or whatever does not produce hybrids in the way it is meant in this thread, since they are all "local varieties" of the same species.
This stands in stark contrast to hybrids created from different species.

Another (loosely related) thing is the difference between preserving wild phenotyes as opposed to line-breeding of fish.

I suggest that, in topics as emotional as this one, examples and comparative views should be chosen with great care.

Cheers, Sandor

Different species, okay I get that. I didnt really look into the species aspect of it as I dont know alot about corydoras at all, just that they are schooling fish

This is a very common misconception (I had to have it explained to me some 4-5 years ago, when I had recently joined the forum).

--
Mats

AND YOU ARE UPFRONT about what the offspring is.

Sadly this is not often the case in the ornamental fish trade with hybrid synos etc

Although I do agree with the above responses, I do think an important matter has been ignored

If you don't want to hybridize, but line-breed instead, the quality of the fish will, ultimately, detoriate by inbreeding.

Now this is a matter most catfishbreeders can ignore, after all, most catfishes have not, or at most rarely, been bred, and therefore the fishes one has are wild caught or F1 or at worse F2

However, all kinds of Ancistrus, Corydoras and most likely also Pterogoblichthys are bred for a few or many generations, and for these fishes the matter is as important as it is for, say, lifebearers

Personally, I think bad fishes, which have been kept pure from foreign breeding material, are worse then healthy hybrids. But pure healthy fishes are much, much better

So I think one should stop breeding after 4 or 5 generations - or mix in new genes. Preferably from the same variety, if not try to find a related variety - and tell about the mixed ancestry of the fishes

I have a strain of swordtails, of very mixed ancestry. I can use them to try whether a fish would eat them, for instance - after all, nobody would want them, but they are very usefull for this purpose