RE: Re: A new rainbowfish?

Bruce Hansen (bhansen at oznet02.ozemail.com.au)
Sun, 1 Sep 1996 10:33:39 +-1000

Many people have contributed to this thread and I feel that it will be a
contentious issue forever. Well perhaps for as long as there is a
commercial advantage in having an attractive "new" fish for people to buy.
After seeing the popularity of the various "man-developed" strains,
mutations, crosses etc of many of the aquarium favourites, especially
livebearers, I feel that aquarium strains of Rainbowfishes are inevitable
so maybe we should try to develop
some guidelines that we could live with and offer them to the trade with
some degree of support reather than have to fight a rearguard action.

The members of the list may have suggestions to the contrary but I feel
honesty is what we should be aiming at andif the trade sees us as
reasonable then we may get more co-operation. The minimum I would like to
see is -

1. Retention of Genus, species and locality(to the stream level if
possible) when those are known with certainty e.g. Mel.trifasciata (Wonga
Ck.) or Mel. splendida splendida (Kuranda)..
2. Genus, species and colour form or mutation e.g. Melanotaenia nigrans
(albino) or Melanotaenia parkinsoni (yellow) if locality is unknown.
3. Genus, species of both parents for hybrids e.g. Glossolepis incisus X
Melanotaenia boesmanii. Under no circumstances should crosses or hybrids
be given the standing of species.
4. Aquarium developed strains ( and they will continue to appear in a
profusion of colours and shapes and sizes) will need to have a new form of
naming developed. Once a particular strain has been "fixed" so that it is
breeding true then it could be given a name such as Rainbowfish ( Aq.
Axelrod ) to delineate that is an aquarium strain developed by Mr. or Mrs.
(or whichever other PC title applies) Axelrod who of course is no relative
of THAT Mr. Axelrod.
5. Non-fixed strains of Rainbowfish of dubious parentage should be labelled
as such e.g. Hybrid Rainbowfish (parentage and origin unknown).

Iwould be keen to get some feedback from listmembers on this.

Bruce Hansen

ANGFA N+Q