we are proud to show you our grandchildren!!! Our lovely F0 L144s bred last March and the colony of the fry we kept bred again in totally different water conditions and at a really young age!!! Here are some photos:
LOL! I was going to say someting along those lines myself John but didn't dare!
Fantastic pics! BN's are fantastic parents! Such a joy! I have 3 of the more unusual ancistrus species waiting for them to breed! I don't trigger them but the majority are ready to go!
discusbabe wrote:I was going to say someting along those lines myself John but didn't dare!
Why?
I think a forum is there to learn.
And especially this fish is very interesting because it's all about inbreeding and it's even not shure if it's a L144
Greetings,
John
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Thanks all. But you got us a bit perplexed now. We bought the parents as wild caught and have reasons to believe they were too. Before disclosing these, however, we would like to know what makes you believe they weren't (particularly as you all seem to be positive they weren't without so much as having seeing a piccy of them).
Btw discusbabe, which of the ancistrus species do you have?
Thanks for the response all. Xanthic forms do appear in the wild (hence the reference in the article). Their chances of survival are lower than "normal" forms depending on the environment but "lower" doesn't mean "none".
For instance, suppose that a xanthic form is in danger in the wild as it is more visible by predators because it doesn't blend well in the background. This means a xanthic form specimen is more likely to die in young age as opposed to another, non-xanthic form individual. However, if this fish is removed from its natural environment (i.e. where it was born) at a young age and is reared in a protected environment (eg home aquarium) it will survive fine. The mutation is natural and very well fixed, so a pair of these fish has no reason to produce other colour form fry. In other words, if one xanthic specimen is bred with another specimen of its kind the mutation is homologous for all the fry - therefore no other colours should appear.
Our original pair has been spawning for 5 years now and we have never seen any brown spots on the fry, even the F2, which proves that the mutation is very well fixed.
As for the report by Knut Kjesbu the following should be noted: in lots of other genera it has been observed that after a series of successful spawns in the aquarium the original, wild caught pair, produces fry with "deformities". These could include colour deformities. We have personal experience of this with wild caught Neolamprologus brichardi and several wild caught haplochromine species from the Lake Victoria. We have observed deformities including hatched backs, fading of colour even complete absence of a particular hue from the fry. This may be phenotypical, which is also true about the spawns indicated in the article by Knut Kjesbu.
Also note that the argument about the brown blotch being an indicator of the re-appearance of the brown allelle in the fry (due to the original cross breeding of a xanthic form with a normal colouration form) is rather questionable. If that were the case, the fry should be totally brown, rather than having only one brown blotch. This is due to the fact that the brown colour is the dominant allele and should, therefore, if re-emerged, suppress the yellow one. The case referred to by Knut Kjesbu points more to a second point mutation, some kind of trophic deficiency or other environmental factor which would lead to a phenotypic change. Nobody can be sure that this brown blotch is directly linked to a genetic change.
This said, any other references - or thoughts - on the topic are very welcomed, particularly if backed up by scientific data.
While hardly scientific, which the Datz book on LNo's is not.
To quote what is said about L144 " Mutation of a dark cloured wild form, the strain was fixed by back crossing. Initially only one, wild caught specimen of this colour form was imported."
I'm not disputing that others may have been imported since, but logic to me suggests that this mutation is very infrequent.
As in the article, and with what John has suggested brown colouration is likely to occur. If this is not happening then it suggests to me that the fixing of the uniform colour will take several generations to do.
In addition according to Datz, the latest edition the point of collection is unknown (Which is unusual for Datz), which leads me to believe that very few have ever been imported.
Nevertheless they are very nice fish, and congratulations on breeding them.
Caesars wrote:Also note that the argument about the brown blotch being an indicator of the re-appearance of the brown allelle in the fry (due to the original cross breeding of a xanthic form with a normal colouration form) is rather questionable.
Sorry, have to correct you there, i have seen several with a brown blotch.
But as far as i know there are several different lines of the L144 in europe.
Some bloodlines are considered more "pure" then others, the ones with undevided (straight) tentacles on the nose should be more "pure".
Speculations in germany are that the L144 is the xanthic form of the Ancistrus sp. Rotpunkt "Rio Paraguay" as discussed in this thread: http://www.zebrapleco.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3053
Greetings,
John
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