These guys sure are pretty ( electric blue Acura’s ) not really understanding the blue…

[Magnum Man]

I’m not really understanding these fish… not typical Cichlid behavior, and I have some electric blue Rams in another tank, the their “electric brightness” is dependent on the main overhead lights… but these electric blue Acaras, are just as bright at 1st light, with only the background lighting, before the main lights come on… maybe it’s the fact that their scales are so much bigger, but the source of their color, seems to be different than the Rams???

 

[GaryE]

GMO fish are illegal to sell in many places, but a whole bunch of blue fish from radically different regions showed up in the hobby at the same time, from Asian fish farms. All are claimed as the result of linebreeding, but man, those electric blue sheens happened so quickly and in so many different fish at once...

Right when the technology became more easily available too.

There's no evidence but circumstantial, and if all these forms are gene splices, we'll never know. All fit the pattern - easy to breed, fast growing, quick to market fish. Call me suspicious, but I'm suspicious...

 

[Colin_T]

I'm with GaryE on this one and it's not just electric blue fish. How many different species of balloon fish appeared almost overnight. There was one species of balloon fish and then bam, there's a dozen species of balloon fish. Apparently it is all line breeding (cough cough bull poop). Someone in Asia has been playing mad geneticist and making fish in a lab.

Re: the electric blue acaras, they have nice big blue scales and will show up better than small fish with smaller scales. It's a bit like Melanotaenia praecox (dwarf rainbowfish), they have blue scales and look much brighter than neon tetras, which also have a row of blue scales. The rainbows have bigger scales and are brighter blue.

 

[GaryE]

Actually, Nanacara anomala is a sometimes common dwarf Cichlid that at a glance can be mistaken for the considerably larger electric blue acara. It's a 100% natural fish, and a great dwarf to keep. It tends more greenish than electric blue, but the fancy blue acaras are cheap imitations.

The gene splicing thing is my conspiracy theory - I have no proof. And if I'm right, whoever did the lab work made a lot of money, and may still be raking it in - that's an incentive to stay quiet. With that technology, not many people would have to be in the know, so the secret would be easy to keep. I know it wasn't chemtrails of dihydrogen monoxide that did it...

 

[Magnum Man]

actually Dan's has had Nannacara-anomala, though these pictures don't look very "electric blue"

https://dansfish.com/product.detail/5101/Rick%27s-Goldeneye-Dwarf-Cichlid-(Nannacara-anomala)

but there are others out there that do... this one ( center fold picture for them on Wet Spot ) looks a lot like the "electric blues" so if they were a hormone bred cross to begin with???

I absolutely won't buy from this seller... but their centerfold picture of a Nanacara anomala looks a lot like an electric blue...

 

[Magnum Man]

which brings me to another question... if you look at the Acaras in the top picture, the fins are the same color as the bodies... I don't think there are scales on the membrane of the dorsal fins... so there must actually be that color there, rather than just the scales reflecting that color???