Rainbowfish Mailing List Archive: RE: [RML] Brood stock diversity

Brood stock diversity. Gee, it would be nice if we could collect 50 of everything to start our stock :-) The real truth is that the VAST majority of the rainbowfish that are in the trade were started with only 6-8 at most and often just a pair. Heiko is one of the main people to bring fish out of NG and you'll see that often he only is able to get a pair or two out alive. If you have good fish and you are careful though this isn't a problem. Rosario LaCorte has kept the tetra named after him, Emperors and black emperors going now for something like 30 years. They look quite nice still and very much like pictures of the wild fish. He did remove fish that had deformities and fin color changes though and didn't allow them to stay in the breeding population. He started with a small group of fish and then keeps 15-20 as his breeding pool. I would suggest that one can keep pretty good rainbowfish if you stick with 6-8 (or more) fish. Raise up 20-30 juveniles and then cull down to
the best 10 for your next generation. I think I've done ok using this procedure over the years. I really don't recommend going out and getting a "bunch" of rainbowfish from different sources because that's probably the best way to screw up your rainbowfish. There are a lot of people that start their breeding programs with 5th or 6th generation (or more) fish and they only start with a pair. And to top it off they've had the fish for 2-3 generations and they go back to the killifish mentality of going back to a pair for breeding which further limits the diversity. If they get unlucky you can start getting weakness in their strains that way. Add their cr*p back to quality fish and you've only served to weaken the good fish that you have. Perhaps Dr. Hansen can comment but I think that a lot of the fish that they bring back from Cape York/Northern Terr. are also only 6-10 fish or a similiar small sized group. I never bring back stock, even if it's stock that I've given out
unless I have a real problem with the fish I'm keeping. THen it's usually a wipeout instead of a strain going bad. BTW if you are careful you can keep most of your rainbowfish spawning 6-8 years and even more so you don't have to be going thru many generations of fish to keep a species going for a long time.

Chose wisely, get several, 8-12, cull that group and then continue to cull for your next generation.

Julie Zeppieri <bowluvr at hotmail.com> wrote:
I know where my fish
came from, and don't want to screw up pure stock with junk.

<snip>

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Brood stock diversity. Gee, it would be nice if we could collect 50 of everything to start our stock :-) The real truth is that the VAST majority of the rainbowfish that are in the trade were started with only 6-8 at most and often just a pair. Heiko is one of the main people to bring fish out of NG and you'll see that often he only is able to get a pair or two out alive. If you have good fish and you are careful though this isn't a problem. Rosario LaCorte has kept the tetra named after him, Emperors and black emperors going now for something like 30 years. They look quite nice still and very much like pictures of the wild fish. He did remove fish that had deformities and fin color changes though and didn't allow them to stay in the breeding population. He started with a small group of fish and then keeps 15-20 as his breeding pool. I would suggest that one can keep pretty good rainbowfish if you stick with 6-8 (or more) fish. Raise up 20-30 juveniles and then cull down to the best 10 for your next generation. I think I've done ok using this procedure over the years. I really don't recommend going out and getting a "bunch" of rainbowfish from different sources because that's probably the best way to screw up your rainbowfish. There are a lot of people that start their breeding programs with 5th or 6th generation (or more) fish and they only start with a pair. And to top it off they've had the fish for 2-3 generations and they go back to the killifish mentality of going back to a pair for breeding which further limits the diversity. If they get unlucky you can start getting weakness in their strains that way. Add their cr*p back to quality fish and you've only served to weaken the good fish that you have. Perhaps Dr. Hansen can comment but I think that a lot of the fish that they bring back from Cape York/Northern Terr. are also only 6-10 fish or a similiar small sized group. I never bring back stock, even if it's stock that I've given out unless I have a real problem with the fish I'm keeping. THen it's usually a wipeout instead of a strain going bad. BTW if you are careful you can keep most of your rainbowfish spawning 6-8 years and even more so you don't have to be going thru many generations of fish to keep a species going for a long time.