Thinking that since most people don't have a lot of zebras in their possession so it is often a limited amount of fish breeding.
By being able to trade some offspring with others who are breeding you can hopefully get the F1 fish to breed with the other F1 and have new blood.
This would have the bonus of being able to get your zebras exchaged for free for some unrelated ones. At this time it seems zebras are both rare and expensive so I don't think many people who already own them are looking to actually purchase any more.
For successful breeders it will help to get diversity in the genepool and hopefully get the diverse genepool breeding
. They would then have fish which are not inbred to offer for sale or trade to others in the hobby.It may sound a bit selfish but that is not how it is thought to be. I was thinking more in line of someone like Rob, Adam, Barbie, McEve or others who have had success in raising young ones . They could get more and diverse fish and sortof pump more diversity into the fish.
This would be to avoid what seems to have happened to angelfish for example or other hightly bred fish and is probably way ahead of any potential problems seeing the rate zebraplecos breed.
The other thought was to put people in touch with eachother to be able to exchange fish that have not or did not breed for others which may be more able to.
This was never meant for someone to buy young zebra fry and hope to exchange them for adults to get instant gratification
I think for people to exchange mature fish , they need to have had a group of fish that they have worked with for a reasonable amount of time - say 2 years. This will ensure that the fish are mature , hopefully healthy and that the person fully knows how to take care of them.
The exchange of fry should not be too difficult. You have a size limit and trade 1 for 1. I would avoid trafficing any fish that are less them 1.5" as I think they may still be too sensative to move around.
To be effective it would need to be monitored to avoid having the same ones going back and forth or having them end up back together through third parties.
As Raul-7 mentioned , making just a limited amount available would be fine and then selling, trading, giving away or keeping the rest.
It was my understanding that zebras can live and BREED for over 20 years?
Anyway - that is my thought. (at this time I do not have any available for exchange)
