coloured fish?

in the last few years there has been a huge influx of juvenile fully coloured malawis (aulonacara, ahli, compressiceps etc.)
into the hobby. for a week or so they maintain this colour and then gradually fade back to normal juvenile colours (grey).
i have seen these fish in peoples tanks and whatever they are being fed even makes the females colour to brilliant male
breeding colours. thats why when seen in the shops there appears to be no females.
anybody who's ever bred these species knows that normally they have to be a year or so old and above 60mm to even begin
showing male colours with few exceptions. as a male colours up he must be removed from holding tank and then another male
begins to show colour and so on. once males colour up they can be held together (batchelor group) as long as no females
are present. based on the above it is easy to suspect hormonal treatment of some sort.
there is also a problem with tanganyikan synodontis hybrids to the extent that people are losing confidence in these
traditionally expensive species, particularly as they are hard to id as juveniles. the already complicated petricola/
lucapinnis group being very slow growing are being artificially crossed with faster growing synos for commercial reasons.
and the fast growing multipunctatus are being messed with for new colour strains. the ultra expensive and rare granulosus
are also being hybridised.
comercialism is at the root of all of this and it is a problem not only here but worldwide.
some asian exporters were the traditional source of hybrids but a certain part of europe seems to be the current culprit.
i would like to hear from others as to their experiences or information on these subjects

I know what you mean Derek.

My experience was in purchasing an 'Iceberg' Freyeri as a juvenile.
This fish was probably 2 inches or so in size & showing stunning colour.

I really should have copped how unusual this was at the time..

So I bought him & within a week he was grey...

I still have him & at double the size his colouration is only getting attractive
now & still nothing like it was in the shop.

Its a real problem & obviously some form of hormone treatment as you say...
Who knows what long term damage it causes when it comes to fertility/organ damage.

I am suspcious these days though & follow the rule that if something seems to good to be true then it probably is....

Intersting topic, Ive recently started using New life spectrum (i think,cant be assed to go upstairs to check!), food and after over a month of using it the colours on my fish have dramitcally increased imo.
Rummys are really showing and esp my L144.

Gavin

hi 2poc
what i have noticed with these artificially coloured fish is that the body shape and finnage is often poor, possibly
because the intense colour deflects us away from noticing the shape.
hi gavin
yes NLS and spirulina flakes are very good and hopefully natural foods that will enhance fish colours in an acceptable way,
but this is not what i am referring to. whatever they are feeding these imported fish on makes baby fish and females
adopt adult male colouration temporarily. colours that no amount of NLS will maintain.

derek wrote:

i have seen these fish in peoples tanks and whatever they are being fed even makes the females colour to brilliant male
breeding colours. thats why when seen in the shops there appears to be no females.

I could be the drugs are changing the sex rather than females taking on male colour.

Its hard to define what is female(genetically speaking) I suspect they are XX males i.e XX with male coloration, read the last couple of paragraphs in this link....

www.malawimayhem.com/articles_african_03.shtml


as you know XX is female
and
XY is male

The spearm duct is closed on XX males (as the are genitcally female!)even the the XX male produces XX sperm so if breed with a real XY male then all 100% of the fry will be female.

books.google.co.uk/books?id=nX3MXt0hiv0C...8&ct=result#PPA69,M1

complex but interesting theory, sean, and that would partly explain the situation, but the real point is that the fish are too young to be even slighly coloured and revert back to norm when the colour/hormone feeding is discontinued.
also sean, what is your opinion on the syno hybrids.

derek wrote:

complex but interesting theory, sean, and that would partly explain the situation, but the real point is that the fish are too young to be even slightly coloured and revert back to norm when the colour/hormone feeding is discontinued.
also Sean, what is your opinion on the syno hybrids.

Sorry to make complex, bacicly, both young female and male are probably fed (for commercial reasons) hormone feed, the males take on temporarlly adult male colour and the real females turn into male coloured fish (XX) the females have testis, but have no spear duct, basically ruined for breading, when the hormones run out both lose colour.

@ syno hybrids..this is outside my comfort zone(don't know enough about it) perhaps you will post a few good links


P.S This problem is nothing new a spotty teangager at the Bray fish show had Discus and Tiger barbs on it (mid 80`s:laugh: )

Sean the hormone feed would it be methyl testerone been fed to the fish 2 weeks before they are sent to the shops?
If it is would this stop them reproducing?

Derek and 2poc can you send me a PM where and roughly when you seen these fish. Just for my own curiosity.

Synodontis are been hybridized to death. I forget the figures but most of what we now see in the shops are hybrids.
All Synodontis will cross breed.
It seems firstly they were crossing slow growers with fast growers just to get them into the shops to make a quick buck. Now they are crossing them for colour, pattern, size of spots, colour of the eyes and trying to keep the larger one's more squat and smaller to suit home aquariums.
I wouldn't be surprised if what we see in the shops are hybrids crossed with hybrids. There should be no need with so many different synodontis species to choose from without playing mother nature.
I had a set of drawings on my old computer showing how to tell each synodontis apart, but i cant find it. I will look again tomorrow and if i find it i will post it.

The reason i raised this issue was to get feedback from people who have bought these particular fish re holding or losing colour
etc. Tom brecknell and i did purchase some of these fish a few years ago when they were not so prevalent, namely aulonacaras baenschi and jacobfrebergi, greshaki and sprengerie. They were tiny but brilliantly coloured and initially we were delighted with them and planned to get some females? later, but within a few weeks they all looked like females. Anyway they grew on and the real males eventually coloured somewhat and some of these species did breed. Perversely the offspring of these fish took longer than normal to get male colouration, but did eventually and were okish but certainly not great.

A more recent developement is the hybridisation of tanganyikan synodontis. In particular the problem is with the juveniles as it is somewhat easier to id purebred adults. It seems the breeders are stripping and mixing eggs and sperm (as with commercial salmon fisheries) and producing fast growth and new colour strains. (as platy said)
These syno hybrids are still nice fish and seem to be hardy and make good pets and as long as they are labelled as "syno species" and not as pure bred synos i would not be too bothered. the problem is some (not all) exporters do pass them off as colour strains of pure species.

As for the show in the 80s and seans dodgy coloured discus, i have a recollection that it raised eyebrows but back then we trusted everyone (even sean):lol:and did'nt disqualify it.

JohnH wrote:

You're So right Derek.
...

But this is one, in my opinion, of the downsides to stopping wild fish exports - we are fast becoming at the mercy of unscrupulous breeders...largely, but not exclusively - it would appear, from the Far East.

John

I would add unscrupulous COMMERCIAL breeders...

I also think a lot of the syno hybrids have originated in Eastern Europe and I hear that Russia is producing some "interesting" fish, isn't the guy breeding clown loaches by using hormone injections working in Russia??

I don't know much about lake cichlids but have come across the debate about their colours and sex on various forums and in various discussions. It would be interesting to find out if they are naturally enhanced of chemically enhanced, I suspect the latter. Whether it has any long term affect on the fish would be the paramount concern. Apparently these fish will still breed successfully once they sort out their sex.

The whole syno hybrid issue has led me to stay away from this area of catfish. I like a lot of the synos, but don't know enough bout them to successfully distinguish the real deal from the hybrids.

I know this tthread started on coloured fish, but Johnh you raised another issue where exporters and distributors have a lot to answer for; the commercialised labelling of fish, the area I am most familiar with is Corys, the exporters are continuously coming up with news names to stick on their list to sell the same fish they sold under another name last week. There are hundreds of meaningless trade names for corys created with the sole purpose of getting LFS to order the fish in the hope it will be something new or interesting.

A few common examples:

C. "Jose luis" = C. elegans. Elegans are extremely common so a nice new name might ship a few more.
C. "Amadaensis" C. elegans or C4 - see above.
C. "Diego" = C. sp aeneus. Aeneus (bronze) are the most common of all, so a new name sounds like a good idea to an exporter.
C. "Puno" = C. aeneus (schultzei) - see above.

So here we have three major issues working against the fishkeeper that the LFS has very little control of or there is little they can do anything about. Long-term the implications of these factors will have a negative impact on the fishkeeping, but those responsible are not farsighted enough to see that.

Back to John's original quote regarding wild fish imports - in the future that may be the only way to get what you are expecting, vanity labelling aside, however that brings its own problems including higher costs, environmental issues and the introduction of new nasties - worms, parasites etc.

Daragh

yes daragh and john i have had similar experiences with the synos and corys, and mislabeled african cichlids are
another pain. when young it is hard to id the genus never mind the species.
in times past there would be the odd hybrid around but now it is like an epidemic.

platty252 wrote:

Sean the hormone feed would it be methyl testerone been fed to the fish 2 weeks before they are sent to the shops?
If it is would this stop them reproducing?

If it was just for 2 week on semi adult fish, probably not, but I seen no commercial reason why its not a 2 phase+ treatment.

Phase one: Hormone treatment to on very young juvenile fish (just past fry stage) to convert all female to xx males.
That way when phase three is done all will colour up as oppose to 50% of the population.

www.springerlink.com/content/85745t522387tn8p/

Phase two: Grow out takes with no hormone treatment but higher temp and feeding every hour to get to saleable size with copious water changes.

Phase three: Hormone treatment to colour semi adult fish up for sale 3 weeks prior to shipping sale.

Phase four: stop feeding, then add to packing water.
www.irishfishkeepers.com/cms/component/o...mit,10/limitstart,0/

derek wrote:

As for the show in the 80s and seans dodgy coloured discus, i have a recollection that it raised eyebrows but back then we trusted everyone (even sean):lol:and did'nt disqualify it.

That discus was only HALF federation show size how Derek gave him he got 2nd overall for the 1985 open fish show I dont know.
It was probally 15 years latter before I saw a discus in the states with as much colour as the one on the bench in Bray in 1985.

P.S I entered female guppies with the same treatment and they came out with a type of explosive dropsy and sort of exploded a few days before the show, these meds are nasty stuff for mature female fish, probably on fry its O.K.