stumpy body shape on male caca, interested to hear opinion

[uberape]

i raised this male from fry and have always wondered about his stocky, muscular body shape. his father was the usual long shape and he was triple red. the mother was sold as triple red female and did not have any similar shape from comparison. this stocky male was the dominant fish out of the fry, growing much faster and larger (but not longer) than the rest. is this an effect of inbreeding or is it a typical/a-typical body type? ive never seen a photo of a male caca that looks the same.

 

[steve1572]

He is deformed the lateral hand should be straight probably the result of to much in breeding most breeders would have culled as soon as they had seen it
But as long as your not planning to breed from him and you not bothered its not a problem

 

[ste12000]

Hi Uberape, i hate to say it but your fish has a spinal deformity. I breed lots of domestic cacatuoides and fish like this are recognised and culled within the first 2 months of life.

Fish like your male should not be in the hobby in my opinion, there are a lot of 'Junk' cacatuoides appearing and this is down to heavy inbreeding for colour, breeders dont always pick the strongest and best looking fish when blinded by the search for more colour. Deformitys like this are common amongst the strongest coloured strains and should be culled at a early stage.

As a display fish in your own tank its not a problem at all and if you like him thats fantastic, however if there is a female and they breed please dont try to raise and distribute the fry, they are likely to carry the males genetic fault and even if they dont show it they are not the best fish to be released into the hobby.

I always try to outcross cacatuoides to unrelated specimens and then raise good strong healthy fish, most other respectable breeders do the same and and fish with deformitys rarely makes it past 2 months of age.

 

[uberape]

****. I did out source the male from the female ignoring the lfs "couple" but obviously missed something in the male. ok i wont breed him. unfortunately i gave many fry away, i had no clue as to any deficiency. people shouldnt put these fish in shops but i guess ive been part of the problem, so ****. ok thanks lesson learned, makes me want to do it properly and ill have to try reading even more, specifically about identifying weaknesses in juveniles, i will probably give him away with the warning not to breed and get healthy fish, its a hard life.

 

[gerald]

You can't always blame deformities on inbreeding (well i guess you can, but it aint necessarily so). Even with wild-caught unrelated parents you will often get a few deformities and they can be genetic or not. Non-genetic developmental deformities (including bent spine) can occur from low oxygen or other WQ problems during embryo development, or possibly the mother's health and nutritional state during ovogenesis. Genetic mutations are essential to long-term species survival, adaptation to environmental change, & colonizing new habitats. Most mutations are biologically detrimental (bent spine) or neutral (red pelvic fins), and a few are useful. The fact that this guy was faster growing than the others is interesting -- makes me wonder if some freak mutation caused both the spinal deformity and increased appetite/growth rate.

 

[wethumbs]

Well said, Gerald. I have experienced a batch of F1 Pelvicachromis taeniatus "Wouri" fry that had curved spine issue. Interesting enough, all the deformed ones were males (about 3 or 4 of them) and they grew faster than the normal males. Obviously, the deformed males also exhibit a stockier body. Since they were from WC parents we could rule out inbreeding.

 

[uberape]

i think he looks like hes trying to be a bolivian ram.Id like to add there is nothing weak about his behaviour, he is inquisative and agile, more so than the other caca males i have seen. I must admit that I did have a panic early on believing that because i had no moss i needed to cultivate critters by leaving an area of the tank dirty. Im sorry about that, i never knew i had the capacity to incur breeding and although i took a week off to read and bother experts, i was 'creative' at those early stages. I thought that you needed to be extremely attentive and heavily informed to breed captive fish. my bad, i feel pretty guilty about it all now.