Angel Breeding- Weird Theory

[Echinodorus]

Hi, I'm Echinodorus. I'm new.

I have a theory.

I have noticed that the hardiness of some popular fish seems to be declining. For example: once you bought guppies as fish that would survive anything. Now they come in all sorts of wonderful colours but at the price of dying at every little hiccough. Angels come in all different colour varietis but a really good pair of true breeding and hardy angels is getting hard to find.

I believe it is due to careless inbreeding.
I want to breed angels 'backwards'. This is, I will select the young angels that prove to be the most colour true of the wildtype. I hope that in breeding back to the wildtype (and carefully avoiding inbreeding) I will strengthen my line.

Have you noted the flaw in the reasoning yet? I say that by breeding for wildtype colour I can regain hardiness. The assumption is thus that wildtype is linked to 'hardiness'. Of course there is no one 'hardiness gene' and a wildtype angel isn't necessarily hardy.

It is a rather weak speculation without concrete scientific base but somehow I think that since the original angels were hardy fish and wildtype and newer angels tend to be weaker fish, but in different colour varieties, that if I breed for wildtype I will automatically breed good hardiness. This because a colour variation is technically a mutation so maybe other genes on the same chromosome have mutated as well (not visable to phenotype). So if I breed for wildtype I will more likely get fish who's other genes on the same colour chromosome have not changed from the original.

My question is: does anyone know if there is a correlation between the colouring of angels and their general health or is my theory doomed to fail?

Also: does anyone know the long term effect of 'crossing over' in the cell meiosis phase. I realise this will jumble the genes of pure wildtype and colour-bred variety but I don't know how great the effect has been in the overal population. If it has been too large then my above reasning is void as there would be no more reason to assume a link between wildtype and 'hardiness'

N.B Don't say: the term 'hardiness' is vague. I realise that. A hardy fish is one that survives stuff (transport...water changes...e.ct). And I know some angels survive more stuff than others, so hardiness exists.

N.B If you can't help me with my question, I'd like to hear comments anyway. It's my second post on a forum ever and i'm still learning the rules.

Thanks!

 

[Tolak]

Outcrossing will strengthen your line and is commonly done among angel breeders. In some phenotypes, particularly double dark blacks & albinos, the inbreeding methods used without outcrossing to another line will lead to a weaker, slower growing, less hardy & parents with fertility issues.

When you cross out to wilds it will take several generations of line breeding & inbreeding to get back to the original color. Often trying to pair a wild caught angel with a tank bred angel is difficult, mostly due to the temperament of the wild fish. Best bet is to get F1 wilds, or silvers with half wild blood.

Many breeders will go out of there way time & money wise to get potential breeders to put some "new blood" into their lines. This often will strengthen the line just as well as crossing out to wilds, without the several generations needed to get back to the original fish desired.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Sort of, but also sort of not. You're along the right lines but for the wrong reasons- it's nothing to do with actual colour as per se (for example, it would be silly to say that red bettas are hardier than blue bettas [although, admittedly that's not *exactly* true, variation in pigments does can various things but in general, there are no major differences]), rather that, as Tolak said, it's the line and inbreeding used in getting a particular colour that does the damage. You'd see exactly the same thing if you used line breeding to re-fix the wild colour.

However, what does hold true is the key word 'variation', coupled with lots of man-made natural selection. The reason all wild angels are that colour is a) it works, and b) generally whatever the parents genotypes are, you're still going to end up with a wild colouration. It would thereoretically be possible to create a genetically diverse colour strain, if you had access to fish from all around the world, but it probably wouldn't work in practice.

Also, on

This because a colour variation is technically a mutation so maybe other genes on the same chromosome have mutated as well (not visable to phenotype).

, although this could well hold true in certain cases, in general the main problem with inbreeding it that it increases the chances of a previously recessive trait becoming dominant, plus most large-scale breeders would probably pick desired colouration over general 'vitality'.

If you want some good reading on the topic, I would reccomend 'Fish Breeding and Genetics' from the Aquariology series- angels are one of the main topics and although in some areas it's a bit dated, there's loads about colour traits, including some interesting bits on how much the environment can affect colour in tank-bred fish. I'd also agree that if it's a hardy line you're after, it's probably easier starting with a nice wild/F1 pair and basing future spawnings on the offspring.

 

[eggy]

it's becuase the breeders are breeding the fish in the best conditions possible so there imune system is very weak becuase thay haven't been exsposed to many other water conditions, breeders breed them in perfect conditions for no reason but to have the highest numbers of fry to survive.

do you get me?

 

[Tolak]

Glad you know how breeding operations run, sounds like you've seen many.

This would explain why Asian bred fish, which are bred in huge overstocked ponds, in less than optimal water conditions, do poorly, while locally bred fish which are bred in better water conditions do much better. Commercially bred fish in the continental US usually split the difference between the two as far as survivability.

It also doesn't take into account any hardening process the breeder might do in a properly run breeding operation. I'm about to bag fish that haven't had a water change in 1 1/2 weeks, and only had a 20% water change the week before that. They've been fed mostly flake for the past week. I do this because they just may be going into a tank with less than optimal conditions, and I would rather see any losses occur at my end than at the customer's end.

How many have I lost in the last few weeks? Zero.

From my personal experience clean water makes for a stronger immune response. If you've had different experiences with your breeding efforts I'd like to hear, as this goes opposite from what I and many other breeders I know have experienced.

 

[windhopper]

We have this issue in the horse world (or an issue similar anyway - they get bred for colour not temperment) Why not put aside the idea of only breeding the wild colour angels and only breed the more hardy ones that you get? Otherwise you could be taking out alot of strong angels from the genepool and also alot of colour variations that could be just as hardy and in some cases more so?
Sorry if i make no sense,
Jorel

 

[theshadowinc]

Okay my experience with angles are not that successful in breeding cause I never really wanted to breed my breeding pair, I know sounds weird they looked way better in my tank but I would let them just breed because its part of nature and really it never fraustrated me I had optimal conditions. But I have more than enough experience I think to put my 2 cents in, I did line breeding for years with bettas and it was really fun the thaught of it sometimes was ewww, I had wild ones I had sent over and mixed with the ones I had and bread many times with the wild type to keep the strains different in the stores knowing people would buy them wanting to breed them. I have also notice the more you inbreed even with optimal conditions the more useless fry come out meaning they just don't grow no matter what you do. From my experience the inbreeding part looks more for the colour to keep it true other than that I don't really see a point. I always went out of my way to make sure this betta was from here and that one from there and this one shipped in when I was into doig betta's. Right now I am unsure what I want to stick to for breeding but thinking for getting into Discuss myself and I will for sure be doing way more research in this area in time to come!

 

[ScottyBoy]

To make an angel fish more hardy you will need to subject the fish to the conditions explained transport and water changes on a small level, But most angel will not breed unless the conditions our perfect your better off importing an wild court and cross it with a captive breed of both simular colourations if your looking to proof your theory. Good luck with it though i will be intrested to see what effects it has keep us updated.

 

[theshadowinc]

But most angel will not breed unless the conditions our perfect your better off importing an wild court and cross it with a captive breed of both simular colourations if your looking to proof your theory.

Not really true. In my planted tank where I had my angles just for show, they use to breed all the time on a amazon sword. I raised the temps and they would breed usually temp of 80F, but I tried to get them to stop breeding cause I didn't want them breeding so set temp to 76F and they would still breed. No matter what I did they would just breed, I guess a natural breeding pair. I even introduced smaller and larger angles with them. They would just team up on the new pray in the tank even if put single the female with a new male she would want nothing to do with it.

Colour theroy is just a little tricker to talk about cause for the simple fact many have tried different methods I have seen pure blacks from from a Albino pair <- Now that is weird. I have heard stories of people breeding there multi colours for finage and get weird colours from some of the breeds, To get the finage is truly through picky inline breeding.

 

[Jonathangerous]

"generally whatever the parents genotypes are, you're still going to end up with a wild colouration."

not really true. a number of morphs are dominant over silver. It's more because said coloration mutations are rare.