Unhealthy Yellow A. cacatuoides fry

[creedmore creek]

Hello everyone,
I have a beautiful yellow cac. female and a triple red/yellow male hybrid that I have bred a number of times. As expected about half of the fry from this pair turn up to be the yellow morph. Unfortunately though I have been unable to raise any of the yellow morph fry to adulthood as they all seem to die out in the second to fourth week of existence.
This past summer I put my breeding pair outside in a large planted container and left them to their own doing. The fish bred well out there (without ever being fed) and when I brought the fish back inside as the tempatures started to dip I had quite a few sub adults that the pair had generated (you would not have believed the growth rate of the fry outside). However, none of the offspring were yellow morphs.
I know that the history of the breeding the yellow morph trait was linked with reduced fitness (swim bladder problems etc) that presumably came from associated deleterious gene(s). I know that many out there though have no trouble perpetuating the yellow morph with ease. Has anyone else out there run into the problem I'm having or have a possible solution to offer. Thank you for any time or help

 

[tjudy]

If the problem is purely genetic, then there is not much you can do other than to repair the fish with different mates. The problem might be a competative problem. You could try separating the yellow offspring from their normal color siblings.