Neons, guppies and other common fishes that used to be tough but are crap now have 2 main issues, diseases and inbreeding.
Diseases can be viruses that are becoming more common due to weaker fish and dirtier environments that don't get cleaned out between batches. If you have a garden bed with potatoes, you don't put more potatoes in the same plot every year because they end up developing diseases. Same deal with fish. The Fish farmers don't dry the ponds out between uses and don't bleach anything either. They remove the fish from the pond, add a heap or manure or fertiliser, let it go green and then dump another load of fry in it.
In tropical Asia where lots of aquarium fishes are bred, they regularly have sewerage running into ponds, or they keep blackworms, Daphnia/ Moina and other insect larvae in sewerage ponds and use that as food for the fish. Any bacteria, viruses, parasites, etc, that are being released into the pond from the sewerage, has a good chance of jumping species and infecting fish.
Fish from farms are weaker due to excessive chemical use, and drug resistant pathogens are becoming the norm. Jack Wattley discus farm treats all their young discus with potassium permanganate or something every month until they are 3 or 4 months old. They add the stuff to the water, wait for the fish to drop to the bottom of the tank, then add a chemical to neutralise the poison. They do this to stop the fish dying from what they call bacterial infections. If it's an internal bacterial infection, they should look at the food they feed the fish. They feed meat based foods and won't accept that Wattley got it wrong. Discus are primarily vegetarian and need lots of plant matter in their diet, not mammal meat. Yet they continue to treat every batch of baby discus a number of times while feeding them the wrong diet.
Regarding drug resistance, most fish diseases have been exposed to the same chemicals for decades, and a lot of the pathogens are becoming or have become resistant to the chemicals. We see this on the forum where fish have a minor infection (a tiny hole in a fin) and it won't heal regardless of what is used. A month or more later and the fish dies because it can't be treated.
Most of the chemicals that have and still are being used on fish are harmful poisonous substances and some even cause cancer. It can't be good for the fish's genetic makeup or their overall health to be regularly exposed to chemicals like Formaldehyde, Malachite Green or half the other ingredients in every day fish medications.
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This isn't aimed at Emeraldking or any other good breeder. You can inbreed a bit but you need to add new bloodlines regularly and keep things clean. But inbreeding has been going on since the 70s when platies and swordtails were crossed to get more colours. Then they started inbreeding for certain traits and here we are 50 years later with guppies, platies and swordtails from most fish farms being absolute crap quality fish. They are riddled in diseases like gill flukes, intestinal worms, external bacterial and protozoan infections and even Fish TB is becoming more common in them. Add these diseases to 50 years of inbreeding and you have a fish that dies a few days or weeks after it is added to a healthy tank.
Male Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens) are so messed up from inbreeding it's not funny. I don't like being racist so will try to say this politely, but the Asians who breed fish with major deformities just because it's different need to be banned from breeding or keeping fish. Dragonscale or whatever the gene is in B. splendens that causes scales to grow over the fish's eyes is horrible. It is unpleasant to look at and makes the fish blind. But the Asians think it's great. How would they like to go blind because some turkey has deliberately inbred their parents to make their offspring go blind just because that particular person thinks it looks interesting. It's as bad as them bending their girls toes over and strapping them down so they have small feet when adults. So sick of these people that can't let things be natural and normal.
Flowerhorn cichlids, omg it's a hideously deformed mutant fish. Pearlscale goldfish, bubble-eye goldfish with big sacks of air under each eye and a deformed head and body. The poor bloody things can't see properly or digest dry foods without floating about in the water. Balloon fish of all sorts. How would the Asian breeders like to have their body shortened by over half and have to survive with massive pressure on their internal organs and the inability to have normal internal processes.
Sorry I'm losing it. Enough with the crap inbreeding that produces deformed animals purely becomes some ahole reckons it's looks good or interesting. Fish should be bred so they can move normally and digest food normally and not be susceptible to genetic diseases/ disorders that make life more difficult than they already are.
I hate sections of the human race.
Diseases can be viruses that are becoming more common due to weaker fish and dirtier environments that don't get cleaned out between batches. If you have a garden bed with potatoes, you don't put more potatoes in the same plot every year because they end up developing diseases. Same deal with fish. The Fish farmers don't dry the ponds out between uses and don't bleach anything either. They remove the fish from the pond, add a heap or manure or fertiliser, let it go green and then dump another load of fry in it.
In tropical Asia where lots of aquarium fishes are bred, they regularly have sewerage running into ponds, or they keep blackworms, Daphnia/ Moina and other insect larvae in sewerage ponds and use that as food for the fish. Any bacteria, viruses, parasites, etc, that are being released into the pond from the sewerage, has a good chance of jumping species and infecting fish.
Fish from farms are weaker due to excessive chemical use, and drug resistant pathogens are becoming the norm. Jack Wattley discus farm treats all their young discus with potassium permanganate or something every month until they are 3 or 4 months old. They add the stuff to the water, wait for the fish to drop to the bottom of the tank, then add a chemical to neutralise the poison. They do this to stop the fish dying from what they call bacterial infections. If it's an internal bacterial infection, they should look at the food they feed the fish. They feed meat based foods and won't accept that Wattley got it wrong. Discus are primarily vegetarian and need lots of plant matter in their diet, not mammal meat. Yet they continue to treat every batch of baby discus a number of times while feeding them the wrong diet.
Regarding drug resistance, most fish diseases have been exposed to the same chemicals for decades, and a lot of the pathogens are becoming or have become resistant to the chemicals. We see this on the forum where fish have a minor infection (a tiny hole in a fin) and it won't heal regardless of what is used. A month or more later and the fish dies because it can't be treated.
Most of the chemicals that have and still are being used on fish are harmful poisonous substances and some even cause cancer. It can't be good for the fish's genetic makeup or their overall health to be regularly exposed to chemicals like Formaldehyde, Malachite Green or half the other ingredients in every day fish medications.
-------------------
This isn't aimed at Emeraldking or any other good breeder. You can inbreed a bit but you need to add new bloodlines regularly and keep things clean. But inbreeding has been going on since the 70s when platies and swordtails were crossed to get more colours. Then they started inbreeding for certain traits and here we are 50 years later with guppies, platies and swordtails from most fish farms being absolute crap quality fish. They are riddled in diseases like gill flukes, intestinal worms, external bacterial and protozoan infections and even Fish TB is becoming more common in them. Add these diseases to 50 years of inbreeding and you have a fish that dies a few days or weeks after it is added to a healthy tank.
Male Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens) are so messed up from inbreeding it's not funny. I don't like being racist so will try to say this politely, but the Asians who breed fish with major deformities just because it's different need to be banned from breeding or keeping fish. Dragonscale or whatever the gene is in B. splendens that causes scales to grow over the fish's eyes is horrible. It is unpleasant to look at and makes the fish blind. But the Asians think it's great. How would they like to go blind because some turkey has deliberately inbred their parents to make their offspring go blind just because that particular person thinks it looks interesting. It's as bad as them bending their girls toes over and strapping them down so they have small feet when adults. So sick of these people that can't let things be natural and normal.
Flowerhorn cichlids, omg it's a hideously deformed mutant fish. Pearlscale goldfish, bubble-eye goldfish with big sacks of air under each eye and a deformed head and body. The poor bloody things can't see properly or digest dry foods without floating about in the water. Balloon fish of all sorts. How would the Asian breeders like to have their body shortened by over half and have to survive with massive pressure on their internal organs and the inability to have normal internal processes.
Sorry I'm losing it. Enough with the crap inbreeding that produces deformed animals purely becomes some ahole reckons it's looks good or interesting. Fish should be bred so they can move normally and digest food normally and not be susceptible to genetic diseases/ disorders that make life more difficult than they already are.
I hate sections of the human race.
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