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cross breeding

5K views 6 replies 6 participants last post by  Oldman47 
#1 ·
i've been reading alot about cross breeding and i was wondering if anyone had any pictures of a platy/swordtail or a molly/guppy cross bred i'm curious to see what that would look like​
 
#2 ·
About 2 years ago i bought a molly from a local pet store. I bought it because it looked pregant. Sure enough about 3 weeks later it dropped about 20 fry. They were so tiny wasn't sure they were guppies. Every day there seemed to be less and less. After about 2 weeks i could see beautiful colors on these molly looking fish. But they were to weak and all the fry were dead with in 3 weeks. I could never get any pics but i am pretty sure it was a cross bread
 
#3 ·
Anytime you house swordtails and platys together you will likely get hybrid fry. Most serious breeders will try to keep their strains clean. If you do crossbreed them try not to introduce them to others. After a few generations they will look like one fish or the other, but their genes will be screwy (technical term). Here is a pic:

 
#4 ·
The fry will vary in appearance. In biology, you should have studied genetics. You should have learned about dominant genes. Here's what will happen....
A or a=platy
B or b=swordtail
(lower case for recessive genes and caps for dominant)
You will end up with a group of fish that will have the following Ab and Ba.
Continued interbreeding will render -- Aa, Bb, Ab, and Ba and so on....Yes pure strains will appear in successive generations but one will not be able to tell which fish are pure and which are carrying the alternate dominant or recessive gene.
Cross breeding is NOT a good practice in our hobby. Much is done in the name of money. Anything to make a buck.

What if...
As many of you may, or may not, know, the Victorian Cichlid is disappearing in its natural habitat due to man's interference with nature(again, in the name of making a buck). They may soon be found only in the hobby. No joke. If we were to begin to cross breed these fish, the pure strain of each individual species would be lost forever. It is that truth the binds me to be against any form of cross breeding in the hobby. "Designer fish" have no place in my tanks. And that is exactly what they are, "designer fish". Man playing God to make a dollar.

Designer fish may be neat but are not practical, nor are they natural. So, please don't play God. Cross bred fish are nothing more than the result of a mad, greedy, pseudo-scientist mentality.

My $.02.
 
#7 ·
If you want to see a cross between a swordtail and a platy, go to any fish store and look at any swordtail that is not a basic green sword. The color variations and the wags and tuxedos are the result of breeding swords with platies and then inbreeding the results to fix the colors in a fish with a sword.
 
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