ooohhhhhh he's pretty....
Hybridizing Livebearers Take 1
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It very much depends on the source I found: I have had some LFS guppies live for 5+ years while others were sickly and often got diseases. I have also had the latter (before I knew any better about quarantine) bring in diseases which wiped out most of my stock in a matter of a day or two.
I always enquired about the origin of the fish and, on average, those from SE Asian farms were the sickly and weak ones while those from Sri Lanka farms were the healthiest looking.
There was often a size difference between the fish at the point of purchase, the Sri Lanka fish were usually much larger.
In more recent years, I have switched to buying guppies from hobbyists who regularly out-crossed their stock and those fish have always been healthy and grew large.
There are no two ways about that inbreeding will eventually cause genetic disorders: there has been research done into it and it is clearly visible in some dog breeds, for example. I expect that it is more a questions of "how log before it shows up?". Inbreeding for 10 generations? Sure, that probably won't cause visible problems. What about 50? 100? 500? 30 years is potentially 180 generations and that may be a lot of inbreeding. It would take 4000 years for humans to achieve that sort of inbreeding! Can you imagine that? Obviously, human genetics are considerably more complex than guppy or dog genetics, but it's still leaves quite a large scope for problems.
If your LFS use only good farms for their stock, you are very lucky indeed.
micko
drive it like you stole it.
Simply not true.
Thank you Mothi. That was the exact same referencial (sp?) video I was going to post but I had gone to bed because I was tired.
Also, about LFS guppies being weak... Mine have never been weak or prone to disease and the males are kept separate to the females from the time you can tell them apart. I know this because Kella personally supplies the store with guppies half the time.
A video on YouTube is *not* a reliable reference.
Did you know that there are at least 16 species of fish called "molly"? Did you know that their adult sizes range from a tiny 30 mm (Poecilia chica [1]) to a huge 150 mm (Poecilia velifera [1])? Did you know that most of the mollies sold in shops are hybrids? Did you know that you do not know between which species?
It is clear that you have not even started researching this subject. Please do so before you attempt anything which could kill your fish.
[1] male sizes, from Lucinda, P.H.F. 2003 Poeciliidae (Livebearers). p. 555-581. In R.E. Reis, S.O. Kullander and C.J. Ferraris, Jr. (eds.) Checklist of the Freshwater Fishes of South and Central America. Porto Alegre: EDIPUCRS, Brazil
I know there are a lot of species of fish called Molly and I know I have a Short Finned Saffron Molly. The Molly has taken no interest at all anyway so I may try the other way round, Male Guppy, Female Molly, I just need to find a nice male to go with my Female Gold Dust Sailfin Molly.
Neither of those is a species: those are colour morph names. So, do you know what those are? Probably not.
If LFS guppies are weaker it has nothing to do with inbreeding,It has more to do with the way they are intensively farmed maximum yield in the shortest time=more profit
They are then shipped worldwide put into wholesalers tanks then on to shops,All or most will have adequate disease precautions and optimun conditions as they want to keep the fish alive to sell
then the fishkeeper buys them puts them in their tanks sometimes only days after being shipped,where they succumb to stress related diseases
As it has been stated the most of the LFS Mollies,swords and platies are hybrids so I cannot see why you would want to add more to them
but it is personnal preference
As for the females dying?the females produce eggs with a certain amount of nutrition in them for the fry to develop so oversize fry to the extent of killing the females seems unlikely as there will not be enough to nourish them
only my thoughts
They are then shipped worldwide put into wholesalers tanks then on to shops,All or most will have adequate disease precautions and optimun conditions as they want to keep the fish alive to sell
then the fishkeeper buys them puts them in their tanks sometimes only days after being shipped,where they succumb to stress related diseases
As it has been stated the most of the LFS Mollies,swords and platies are hybrids so I cannot see why you would want to add more to them
but it is personnal preference
As for the females dying?the females produce eggs with a certain amount of nutrition in them for the fry to develop so oversize fry to the extent of killing the females seems unlikely as there will not be enough to nourish them
only my thoughts
Male Short Finned and a Female Sailfin. I did mention they're species aswell as colour morph.
As I have said, the guppies in my LFS don't go through shipping. I wish most LFS workers could do the same but not everyone breeds livebearers. I help supply the Mollys because I breed them, I'll also be breeding swordys and platies (not together but species only).
GENETIC DISEASE. Thats like saying that a human being wont develop CF if its brought up in good conditions. If it is genetically viable to develop that disease, it will do. No ifs or buts.
eurgh just because your 2 guppies have lived 8 days doesnt mean all guppies re not weak. its a known fact nowadays, lfs guppies are not as hardy as they once were, breeder guppies are.
A video from youtube as viable scientific reference, not sure that would go odwn too well in a biology PhD. Doesnt count.
and again, just because yours havent doesnt mean that the rest of the worlds arent. Bigger picture.
Not species names, even the sailfin bit isnt species name. What is the scientific name for your mollies? Do you know? NO.
well yes it does, getting bigger yields includes leaving mothers brothers fathers and sisters in one huge container for weeks to breed and breed and breed, the breeder doesnt really care aslong as theyre pretty.
and no. the female will produce bigger yolk sacs to provide for bigger fry, hence why occsionally you get 1 singular huge fry out of a normal sized batch.
As said before, scientific names?
If that was the *only* reason (and I'm not saying that it isn't part of the problem), then it would affect *all* other farmed fish too, but at least in my experience, it does not. They most definitely are farmed for maximum yeald, but colour and tail size are a large part of it. How many people do you expect would buy a wild-type guppy over a fancy one?
Actually, there are a lot of other species which are affected by line breeding (= inbreeding in many cases, although it does not have to be). Similar problems can also be seen in some ballon morphs, albino morphs, specific colour strains of other fish.
It is a valid point, but growth rates are affected by genetics, not only the available nutrition. You are right that a crossbred fry (when crossed with a large species of molly) will not be as big as a molly fry (from a large species of molly), but it will still be bigger than a guppy fry.
Sorry, but those are trade names for body shapes, they are not species names (as pointed out above). Either give a scientific name or a common name which is used exclusivity for one species (like "goldfish", for example). If the origin of these fish was a generic LFS "molly" (regardless if they were then bred by someone), they are most likely hybrids and you don't actually know what they are.
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