Brother and Sister?

[wlagory]

Hello,

I had a question about a pair of apistogramma borelli's that I have in a 10 gallon tank with 3 pristella tetras and 1 oto. The tank is well planted and has a couple big chuncks of driftwood. The pair "spawn", or so I think, on pretty much a bi-weekly basis. I have only gotten free swimming fry 2 times out of probably 10 or so spawns.

When I got these two apistos they were super tiny and looked identicle. They turned out to be male and female and attempted to breed in the once crowded tank. The female shows a lot of aggression towards the male almost always. I have also never seen the actual fertilized eggs because the female hides them and gaurds the vigorously.

My questions is, what is the likelyhood that I have a male and female from the same brood. Would the female attempt to keep her male brother away from her eggs to avoid incest? This has been a rising suspicion of mine after many failed spawns. Or are all female borelli's highly aggressive towards the males? Any advice on borelli's would be awesome!

Thanks alot!

 

[tjudy]

Fish do not recognise familial relationship. That is more of a human quality. If the fish are captive bred then you are likely to have siblings. That is not a big genetic problem unless you are several generations inbred. The aggression you are seeing is normal for any pair. If the pari are spawning in a pot with a small opening that will allow you to remove them from the tank (pot with fish and eggs all at once), you could try rearing them in a ten gallon by themsleves. After the mother has raised them for a few weeks remove her and the pot and place them back into the breeding tank. A. borelli are slow growers.

 

[Apisto ranch]

Man slow growing isn't the word if you ask me. LOL I have 5 that's going on 6 to 7 month old. They are still really small. The largest of the 5 is a singal male. He's just now coming around to trying to get a female. Now I don't mean to jump in on the topic or take over topic. Sorry Walgory. I've been on a topic just like this be for and I get stuff like{ brother sister is bad bad, don't breed brother sister you wouldn't sleep with your sister} But then You say it's ok if your not to far into the family to many times. So TO SAY
But then there is Betta breeders who will only breed sblings. I feel like you that fish don't see family as family but as another fish just like them. Are another fish bigger then them. betta breeder { Myself inclued} would bred sblings before two fish from differnt mothers. we don't see smaller fry counts or 3 headed fish. But we do see easyer breeding and more often.
So whitch would you as a breeder tjudy bred frist the sbling pair whos been togeather and are less likely to fight because of this are the pair just added to the tank and getting to know each other???

 

[tjudy]

I wrote a long post in response.. and my computer crashed...

Sigh....

I prefer to get F1 or F2 captive raised fish because they are generally healthier and more tolerant of different water conditions. I will outcross when I can, however, to preserve gentic diversity. Inbreeding is not a problem so long as unacceptible traits are culled (bad gills, fins, body shape or other deformities). I do nto cull for color. I may choose a brighter color to breed, but the less colorful are sold, given away or traded. The genes for color are still in the less colorful fish, and culling them would remove those genes from the gene pool... you may want those genes back someday!

 

[nightowl1350]

No fish don't relate to brother sister relation ships. It is possible to breed siblings for a few generations, but if there are any problems like short gill plates, missing fins etc in large numbers I would split them as a pair.

I have a mother/son blue ram pair. The original pair produced some with missing ventrals, the mom/son had a much larger spawn and I see no missing ventrals in the bunch. I switched mates as the son is bigger and nicer looking than his Dad. The fewer gentic problems is a great bonus and proves Dad was the one who carried the problems.

 

[wlagory]

Thanks for all the replies! I never had a clue that fish could not tell the difference between a related fish and a none related one. I just figured the amount of aggression the female was showing towards the male was abnormal. I guess I just have an aggressive female . Thanks for all the good info!

 

[Mike Wise]

I never had a clue that fish could not tell the difference between a related fish and a none related one.

Even we human beings cannot recognize our siblings unless we have been raised with them. I know that your sibling cacatuoides were raised together, but there were probably 25+ siblings in the same tank & I doubt that they quite have our intellegence & ability to recognize subtle differences.