Flowerhorn Project

[Nevergone815]

money isn't always an issue. someone with a good science backgroud, a good microscope and a good lab kit can do wonders. they said that they wanted to just pen up the market to lower costs. this is smple, the more that are in the market, the lower the cost due to supply and demand. geez i don't even have a degree and i can realize that logic. some people are always set on things that are frivalous. they could've gotten a map of the genes from their study and they're using any cell because it still conatains DNA. also why pay loads of money on buying live fish just to torture, when you can get dead donations for free. it's a simple fact that they never mentioned their budget.

and the fact of them "not knowing" species and saying its a color morph... endler's livebearers have been given a scientific name and everything and recognized as an actual species (these to come in a variety of color patterns), but still people still say that it is jut a color morph of a regular old guppy. maybe this is how they feel about the other cichlids.

but i have said enough and i know this forum is going to rip on me so i'm going to keep my mouth shut here.

edit: meepster, please keep us updated.

 

[Synirr]

Nevergone815, gene mapping isn't something you can do with "a good microscope and a lab kit". You need a lab, equipment and supplies, all of which are expensive. Just because you know what species make flowerhorns doesn't mean it's going to be simple to make more of them. They need a pre-existing genetic map to compare to, which is why they couldn't get it from their study. They could map the genes of each species involved themselves, but it would take a long time and one would expect the work to be published for review, and as RipSlider said, his wife couldn't find any cichlid maps that have been. Gametes contain half the amount of genetic material of somatic cells, so it doesn't make sense to use them as opposed to somatic cells. It doesn't make sense to use dead donations in a true scientific study because it's difficult to document exactly where they came from. There are also other issues that can completely destroy the credibility of your results -- say your supposedly purebred specimen was actually, unbeknownst to you, a hybrid, for example. If you get specimens from vivisection breeders you can guarantee they are pure and can provide documentation. The scientific community doesn't care if your specimen actually was purebred or not, what it cares about is that you can provide documentation that it was. EVERYTHING in a study has to be documented down to the last detail.

Most people don't argue that endlers are a colour morph of guppies, they argue that they are a subspecies rather than a true species, which might be a credible argument to make about red devils and midas. However, when not all red devils are solid red and solid red midas do exist it is just plain retarded to try and claim that one is a colour morph of the other. I'm sure meepster saw "red devil" and made the assumption that that must be all the red ones.

Have I addressed all your concerns?

Look, I was excited about it too, and I gave the guy the benefit of the doubt at first too, but it has become painfully apparent that this "flowerhorn project" is complete bull####. I don't think our buddy meepster is coming back, either.

 

[Nevergone815]

and didn't i say someone would jump on what i said. i just feel that everyone is caught up in all the negatives. a lot of things were discovered not using the "conventional" methods of gene mapping. they could be using equipment from their school. maybe it's a project for school. who knows. they might've gotten carried away with hopes, but i'm saying that it is possible to do. personally i don't care much for it because IF i ever breed hybrids i'll stick to the basic ones that are easier. i don't care about if they actually figure it out, what i did care about was how everyone downed them. maybe it was a dream of theirs and they were excited. i say let them find out if they can do it or not on their own. they don't need everyone jumping on them saying that they are lieing and it can never happen. even if it is a hoax, the fact is that noone really knows what makes up many kinds of hybrids. i think that it gets my mind working. maybe constructively we (this forum) can come up with theories of what they are and breed out lines to try and recreate or results. this would take time too, but theory is theory, no matter if they are actually doing the experiment or not.

 

[RipSlider]

in no way is there anything wrong with theory, and no one is denying this in any way. Many threads in this section are based on theory or questioning theory.

However, to say that they are actually doing this work, that "we are finding some really weird strands of DNA" is an entirely different matter. This is not something that can done at school, this is not something that can be done by a hobbist, this can only be done in a lab with a lot of incredibly expensive equipment.

As I've stated twice, it MAY be true, it's just that I persoanlly see it as highly unlikely, becuase there is no way that the work could be published, and therefore no way it could be protected it patented. That would mean that a lab somewhere is donating hundreds of thousands, probably even millions, a WEEK, to do work that has no financial or scientific basis or benefit, which I see as suspect.

Meepster has been asked a series of question. If he/she could answer them then I would completely acknowledge that they are being truethful. I'd even offer any help I could to the project, as I have a bio-sciences background and could do research, crystalography interps etc in my free time if they wanted assistance. Right now I, persoanlly, am just looking for more details.

If it's a theory or conjecture, it should be expressed as such. If it's experimental research, again it should be expressed as such. However, if it is one thing and is being passed as another, then that is an untruth, which, on a "grown-up" forum such as this I wouldn't expect to see a lot of.

Steve

 

[juanveldez]

they can be wrong. I do not like the clissification cichlosoma because severums used to be cichlosoma severum. now they are heros severus

okay this will be my contrubution to this.

the genus 'cichlasoma' is basically used by the those that are doing the taxonomic classifications as a catch all in cichlids. most recently they reclassified the genus Nandopsis. and moved alot of spcies out of the group JDs are now into the the genus archocentrus and I belive that the Grammodes was not reclassed to a different genus and has been sitting in the cichlasoma genus since. however one of the few genus that have not really been tampered with is the amphilious group. though who knows some scientist might fart wrong and it will be changed but I don't forsee it right now.

I also don't claim to be a know it all when it comes to gene mapping but I would think that with the different strains avalible wouldn't in order to get consistant results the as far as mapping the genes of a FH the subjects would have to have the same liniage?

 

[~T~]

they can be wrong. I do not like the clissification cichlosoma because severums used to be cichlosoma severum. now they are heros severus

okay this will be my contrubution to this.

the genus 'cichlasoma' is basically used by the those that are doing the taxonomic classifications as a catch all in cichlids. most recently they reclassified the genus Nandopsis. and moved alot of spcies out of the group JDs are now into the the genus archocentrus and I belive that the Grammodes was not reclassed to a different genus and has been sitting in the cichlasoma genus since. however one of the few genus that have not really been tampered with is the amphilious group. though who knows some scientist might fart wrong and it will be changed but I don't forsee it right now.

I also don't claim to be a know it all when it comes to gene mapping but I would think that with the different strains avalible wouldn't in order to get consistant results the as far as mapping the genes of a FH the subjects would have to have the same liniage?

I know what your saying and all I have to say is.....FIREMOUTH???

 

[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)

I wonder if I could ask a few question?

Firstly, where is the backing for this project coming from? I know you have said that it is to end the malaysian monopoly, but if you are doing gene seqeucing with a team of around 100 people, then the costs of running it will be in the millions a week ( The cost of my ex's gene sequencing work was in the tens of thousands a week, and that was her working with just her proffessor for her Ph.D). I wonder if you could explain the source of their backing? I.e, is it done as a thesis or piece of Post Doc work? if so, which institution or funding body would be paying for this? ( I'd like to know for if I ever do my post doc and want some serious money! )

Also, why would you take samples from Gametes? Surely at that stage, you would be getting very high numbers of stem cells, which wouldn't be hugely useful to work from? Would you not want a "defined" to accurately match the indicator pairs?

If your working out what the genetic makeup of the flowerhorns are, surely you need a full or at least very nearly complete genetic sequence for all the various candidates. Looking on google, Journal Spy, British Library etc, I can't find that these have ever been publish for the fish in question. Could you state your source of them so I could have a look at them?

Why would a multi-million pound/dollar project be sourcing specimins as dead fish from the LFS? Surely this breaks all possibility of ensuring true scientific study and the ability to re-create results, meaning that it automatically would fail publishing when it went to peer review? Would you not source directly from a vivisection breeders so that the experiment can be repeated from a single line?

Which journal will you publish this in? How will you get it passed peer review based on the above? I ask becuase surely, in fact I am absolutely certain, there is no way that you would have been able to secure funding on the scale that you have if the work isn't published, either to push it into the open domain, or ( and I guess this is the case based on your mayalsian vbreeders comment ) if you/your backers wish to ensure that no patents can be taken out following your research?


To be honest, while what you are saying may be true, I have very grave doubts it, and currently believe it to be a fairy tale, having worked in a chemistry department that supported biosciences and lived through a thesis AND a post doc on gene sequencing by my ex. What you are saying I simply can't reconcile with what I know to be the case.

I would be interested in your answers to the above questions.

Steve

Ok, sorry, I haven't been on in a while... been pretty busy in the lab. Here is an explanation:

we are using gametes, skin and scale cells, and possibly other organ cells to find hte dna (its dead... some parts might be broken)

We are using dead specimens because we do not believe in harming live animals. This project will probably take a couple of years. The flowerhorn dna is hard to sequence because os variations (it is a hybrid after all). When we are done with our studies and have found the "formula", then we will milk our own fish and breed them for ourselves. (punnett squares come in handy) Right now, it is reall hard because half of the dna doesn't match any of the cichlid species we have sequenced so far. It will take a while to get through most if not all of the cichlid species to find the complete solution for the flowerhorn.

Right now, we are planning to set up a trial and error experiment. We are planning for all of the team members to chip in money and working along with skipton inc to get cichlids to crossbreed ourselves to see what we get (sometimes mutations between certain cichlids are common due to species semi-compatibility) We may find where that ambiguous dna is coming from.

Also, it has been confirmed that convict dna is in the flowerhorn. (mod edit first post for me please, I gotta get off)

 

[Synirr]

The flowerhorn dna is hard to sequence because os variations (it is a hybrid after all).

Variations within the DNA of a single animal, or variation between flowerhorns? If it is the latter, I don't understand how you didn't foresee it, being that there are so many different strains, and why you woud continue with the project without concentrating on one specific strain since it seems like mixing different strains would just make it that much harder? You're going to get dramatically different data depending on what strain you look at.

 

[~T~]

I would believe convict over firemouth but even then im not convinced.

 

[_cRaCkEr_]

FH breeders/hobbyist around the world are fighting about the DNA and the hump of FH (Talking about 4 species of FH only not including the cross breeding) and if Meepster will be able to find the answer then he should be commended and the FH community will definitely worship him.

I'm also very anxious to know the outcome of his project.