Flowerhorn Project

[diburning]

This post has been removed. I am not authorized to publicize any further results. The Funder for this project deems it necessary as these results are only preliminary. Further progress will be kept confidential for security reasons. (can't have other people publishing our results as their own now can we?)

 

[RipSlider]

cool.

What kind of kit do you have to do this? I've used 64 way acclerated sequencers previously, but figure that your going to need more than that. Hope that you've got a LOT of patience for somehing like this! No results soon I reckon, it will b a damn long job.

which chromosones will you be looking at doing the sequening on first? Are there any specific target sites that will give you a quick way in to establishing parentage?

please kep me updated. Also, are you planning to publish the work?

Thanks

Steve

 

[Synirr]

Way cool!!! Man, I love genetics

You might as well cross oscars off your list, I've never once heard of even a potential oscar hybrid, nevermind a confirmed case. There are several species in the Astronotus genus with which oscars could presumably hybridize, but you don't normally find those in the hobby and they are very much "oscar-looking"... take a peek

Also, add the redhead cichlid to your list, they're frequently crossed with flowerhorns

I think the way they manage some of these crosses is by "milking" the fish... they kill the female and harvest her eggs (or get them some other way I don't know about,) then squeeze the belly of the male just right to collect the semen... put in a bucket and swirl it around some . They do this in salmon farming. Once you get a fertile pair of offspring this production method is no longer necessary

 

[diburning]

Way cool!!! Man, I love genetics

You might as well cross oscars off your list, I've never once heard of even a potential oscar hybrid, nevermind a confirmed case. There are several species in the Astronotus genus with which oscars could presumably hybridize, but you don't normally find those in the hobby and they are very much "oscar-looking"... take a peek

Also, add the redhead cichlid to your list, they're frequently crossed with flowerhorns

I think the way they manage some of these crosses is by "milking" the fish... they kill the female and harvest her eggs (or get them some other way I don't know about,) then squeeze the belly of the male just right to collect the semen... put in a bucket and swirl it around some . They do this in salmon farming. Once you get a fertile pair of offspring this production method is no longer necessary

Right now, me and my team are trying to decode the dna of certain fish. We have roughly 300 people working on this. (I'm the leader ) Roughly 100 people work on a certain fish, (2 fish at a time), 50 people compiling data and helping out, 25 people doing reserach, and 25 people sitting around drinking soda and eating pizza all day) Right now we have sequenced the DNA of the following cichlids: Midas/red devil, firemouth, convict, severum, and ram.

And currently, we have people working on 2 other fish. Acara and texas cichlids.

Right now we are getting some really really odd results.. we are getting weird strands of dna that we don't know where it came from.

Oh yea, HAPPY DNA DAY (tuesday april 25, the day when the human genome was finally decoded)

 

[Synirr]

You should try to solve the mystery of the origins of bloodparrots once and for all... they're supposedly a mix of only two species, so it would theoretically be easier

 

[~T~]

Firemouth Thats a new one to me.

I notice you havent mentioned Trimac, even to the untrained eye you can see trimac in there.

Apparently it started off with timac x midas/devil/kk parrot and over time festae was mixed in.These days a lot of FH have synspillium mixed in too.

You might want to check out www.flowerhornusa.com theres a lot of answers on there.

 

[diburning]

Firemouth Thats a new one to me.

I notice you havent mentioned Trimac, even to the untrained eye you can see trimac in there.

Apparently it started off with timac x midas/devil/kk parrot and over time festae was mixed in.These days a lot of FH have synspillium mixed in too.

You might want to check out www.flowerhornusa.com theres a lot of answers on there.

there possibly could be trimacs although I doubt that they put trimacs in pure hybrid flowerhorns. the trimacs screw up the flowerhorn's coloring and the head hump making them less valuable. trimacs and flowerhorns just happen to breed togerther because of similar body shape.

I will add trimac to the list, but testing for the trimac is months away.

Now... I need to find someone with a dead trimac... lol or at least a trimac that doesn't mind donating a few scales.

 

[~T~]

Theres no possibly about it, FH are mostly trimac, come on you just have to look at the basic flowerhorn and the basic trimac

Just out of interest how are you going about finding the DNA?

 

[diburning]

Well, I am sorry people for my mistake. I talked to my researchers on duty today and they said the exact same thing.

The trimac might account for some of the ambiguous dna that we found.

And about extracting dna, we use gamete samples if possible, (its easier with gametes) but if they are destroyed or not availible, then we resort to using skin, flesh, blood, scale or even brain samples to extraxt the DNA.

I jsut got news that I have a collegue that is doing something similar to my project only he is doing parrot cichlids so I'll keep you people posted on that too.

So far, the parot team has found that parrots are actually NOT crosses between 2 species but crosses of at least 5. (thats why some have bigger cheekes than others, and some have different coloring)

 

[~T~]

Well, I am sorry people for my mistake. I talked to my researchers on duty today and they said the exact same thing.

The trimac might account for some of the ambiguous dna that we found.

And about extracting dna, we use gamete samples if possible, (its easier with gametes) but if they are destroyed or not availible, then we resort to using skin, flesh, blood, scale or even brain samples to extraxt the DNA.

I jsut got news that I have a collegue that is doing something similar to my project only he is doing parrot cichlids so I'll keep you people posted on that too.

So far, the parot team has found that parrots are actually NOT crosses between 2 species but crosses of at least 5. (thats why some have bigger cheekes than others, and some have different coloring)

I would be very interested to see the BP findings are, im willing to be that no severum dna would be found.

 

[diburning]

i already crossed off severum. BP project just started. Unlike me, my collegue might not want to release his results until he publishes them.

for my project, mine is for the purpose of ending the malaysian flowerhorn monoply. If someone else steals our work, then at least it would still help to bring the prices down. (who know?? maybe some malaysian breeders will pay big money for me to keep it secret lol)

 

[~T~]

Good for you but theres no real secret with FH's to be honest, theres a half dozen fish used to create the various strains(trimac,synspillium,devil/midas/kk parrot,texas,festae).

Parrot apparently has at least devil/midas and synspillium and like you say possibly others.

 

[Synirr]

I doubt knowing how to "make" a flowerhorn would bring the price down much... part of the problem is hybrid sterility. You've gotta be lucky enough to find a fertile fish to outcross it again

 

[diburning]

Good for you but theres no real secret with FH's to be honest, theres a half dozen fish used to create the various strains(trimac,synspillium,devil/midas/kk parrot,texas,festae).

Parrot apparently has at least devil/midas and synspillium and like you say possibly others.

I don't know about parrots yet. And about hybrid strains, texas cichlids aren't hybrids. in fact, they are the only cichlid native to the US. (lol thanks to the texas revolution)

and no, its not a hlaf dozen fish to create hybrids. red devils are just a color strain of midas like how koi are a color strain of the common carp.

Oh yea, I got a dead trimac from my LFS to help the project

 

[Synirr]

Red devils most certainly are not a colour variation of midas, they are two completely different species! Closely related, make no mistake, but RDs are Cichlasoma labiatus while midas are Cichlasoma citrinellum. (EDIT: Of course, these two species have been crossed so much that you'd be lucky to find a pure bred specimen of either.)

Also, I don't think T is saying Texas cichlids are hybrids, he's saying there are different strains of FH that have more blood from one fish than others... the only hybrid in that list of strains is the KK parrot, all others are legitimate species.

If you're ever in doubt, Google the common name of the fish followed by "scientific name". If the fish is scientifically classified it is not a hybrid