Apisto inbreeding?

[Eva32181]

I know that many of the apistos sold as pairs are actually siblings, often from the same spawn. To what point can you breed sibling apistos before there are problems? I sold five sub-adult borelliis to a friend in town, and he was skeptical that they could be bred b/c they are from the same parents. Any thoughts on this?

p.s. Borelliis spawned last night - I actually was walking by the tank and saw it - they had always spawned in secret before.

 

[jvr]

inbreeding

Hi Eva,

With the proper amount of culling inbreeding should not be an issue for a few generations. However, it does not hurt to add new blood to your bloodlines every couple of generations. Another method used by many guppy breeders is to get a spawn, split them( A line & B line), breed the split up fish, split the offspring do this for 3-4 generations and then cross the lines back offspring in the A line back to the B line.

Many guppy breeders feel that it takes 5 generations before you need to add new bloodlines and cross back out.

I would recommend crossing out whenever you can get a new bloodline to add to your fish. However, be selective and don't add weaker genes.

There are probably many varied opinions on this subject. Frequent infusions of new genes will in my opinion strengthen the fish. Now if you want to breed for solid colors etc, then keep working with the same lines.

Hope this helps

John

 

[tjudy]

Go look at the "Wild or New' thread in the Lounge....