Refer back to: Hamburg swordtail inbreeding Dr. Gentzsch started with a colony of 5 Hamburger swordtails, all clear fin. According to some source of info, that time, Hamburg was maintained in heterozygosity by crossing to X. Helleri. That explained the fishes having clear fin inherited from X. Helleri. Assuming Wild gray/green color is the background of wildtype X. Helleri; the genotype could be coded as [StSt] (St: Stippled defined by Dr. Gordon); And Hamburg trait, the Black scale fully cover the fish body, was encoded as [S/S] (S for Schwarz means Black in German); So, the Heterozygousity of Hamburg that Dr. Gentzsch used likely has [S/s St/St] form. Red swordtail was introduced to Hamburg lineage later in 1975 using Red female x Hamburg male. Mentioned in his article, Red males born from the cross, implying that Hamburg could be dominant. Rather, Gray / Green background was affected by Red, throwing Red offspring (Red is dominant to Gray / Green as we know in Brick red form). This cross could be encoded as: Male: [S/s St/St -/-] x Female [-/- St/St R/R] = [S/- St/ R/-] for Red Hamburg; [s/- St/- R/-] for Red assuming with ratio about 1:1 resembling parental types. Also, following Mendelian law, dominant Hamburg by two heterozygous parents would likely expect a result 75% Hamburg in each generation. By doing inbreed F1 from the above cross, there’s likely a chance [St/ R/-] x [St/ R/-] give raise to 25% green swordtail [St/ -/-(r/r)] in the next generation. Confirmed from his work, Dr. Gentzsch said “number of black fish on total ranged from 64.2% to 80.4%, means ratio is 71.5%” close to 75% and “the Red and Green swordtails isolated from Hamburg parents reproduced only Red or Green offspring” would means they are recessive in Hamburg model. Now, how Red Hamburg looks like? Will Red dominate all over body and well established under layer of Hamburg pattern? According to Dr. Gentzsch, he experienced as following: “Most black offsprings in the 18 generations had clear finnage and only partially had a reddish fin staining” Could it be the case that Red was heterozygous, and their pigmentation expressed not strong enough to show vivid appearance. Also, the expression of Red color on swordtail could be regulated by a group of genes thus lacking one or two gene from the full set would likely bring down significantly the expression. Those extensors have a chance to group together again if practicing inbreed and selection over generations.
Here is another picture of beautiful Red Hamburg done by Antacarol, Indonesian breeder.
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I was lucky to find an article by Dr. Gentzsch, published in "The Aquarium", Issue 309 in 1995 (pages 13-16) about his long persevering hardwork on inbreeding Hamburg swordtail. With very limited time per day for hobby and language barrier, I inched bit by bit to explore the reading and found it "Wunderbare!" First, I would start by presenting the following impressive data table showing the breeding result from 18 generations of Hamburg inbreed in English (I hope I translated it right ;). According to the article, Dr. Gentzsch spent almost 17 years with the project. Starting from 1972 with a group of 5 Hamburg. They all have clear finnage, which he assumed they were born to the green helleri mother (a popular cross to maintain Hamburg swordtail in Germany at that time, I learned).
A brief note of Development and Selection: - The Red swordtail was introduced to Hamburg swordtail colony and Hamburg offspring was propagated from Red swordtail mother until 1975. Red males were culled early. - In September of the year, the fact that 03 black females who delivered healthy offsprings had encouraged Dr. Gentzsch to switch to Hamburg x Hamburg breed model. The census of population took place when frys reach early juvenile stage (2 - 4 weeks after birth), then all red and green base individuals were culled from the colony. - In 18 generations, the number of black fish on total ranged from 64.2% to 80.4%. Plus, the Red and Green swordtails isolated from Hamburg parents reproduced only Red or Green offspring. Applying Mendelian's law, this range closed to the theoretic ratio 75% Black : 25% others (red and green), suggesting Hamburg pattern was dominant and could be explained as below: + 25% Homozygous Black (SS whereas S for Schwarz, aka. Black) + 50% Heterozyhous Black (Ss) + 25% Homozygous of Red or Green (ss) - The means ratio 71.5% from reality, compare to theoretic 75%, might suggest that a small fatality occurred in Homozygous Black offspring. - Dr. Gentzsch also noticed that in those generations, {F7, F8, F10, F11, F12, F13, F14, F16}, some individuals have pretty black chest, but they couldn't be Homozygous fishes because test cross threw out Red or Green offspring [?] - Especially noted by Dr. Gentzsch, generation F17, F18, there was an significant increase in Green offspring. [?] - Other findings included: + Most black offsprings in the 18 generations had clear finnage and only partially had a reddish fin staining. + A proportion of 10-20% early males vs 80-90% late developed males were noted in each generation, even though it's likely the early males were the first to impregnated females in colony. + Ratio of male vs female is roughly 1:1 + Female from Red or Green proved to have larger litter size. + The sword of Hamburg males predominantly yellow and black, only 10% showed complete black sword, but this population is vulnerable to cancer at older age. Yellow swords with black edge did not appear, while isolated yellow swords were observed. + No sign of experienced mom turn to male in any generation. Source: Hamburger Schwertträger - Eighteen generations of successful inbreeding My genetic note: From my observation of Hamburg swordtail, the black "armor" of Hamburg (Hamburg trait) is more likeky an overlayer on the fish body, made of macro-melanophore highly concentrated. While the skin - underlayer could be stippled with micro-melanophore forming Greenish Gray base color of the wild Helleri, and/or stained with Red pigment, popularly seen in many domesticated swordtail nowadays. In other words, Hamburg trait is independent from Red/Green base color. In term of base color, Red would outweigh Green, correlated with the breeding result from F1 to F16. As Hamburg trait is highly dominant, it should express in all filial generations, and with this black "armor" fully covered, the fish skin color could hardly be observed. This explanation would support the data above, and propose a hypothesis that a cross of Rr x rr from Hamburg parents in F17 resulting the ratio 1 Red : 1 Green. Consequently, F18 could have been resulted from rr x rr Hamburg parents, which threw 100% of Green offspring, with or without Hamburg trait. My research about Kohaku is still going on with as much passionate as those first days. Although I have shifted my interest a bit to “irregular red pigment distribution,” the mystery of Kohaku coloration is still an attractive question mark. A few months ago, when looking back those clip and pictures of green Marble swordtail offspring that I used to breed sourcing from Mr. Nekoba, a sudden question came up in me that urged me to Mr. Trochu inquiring about the origin of his Marble swordtails (You will find Marble swordtail very fascinating in the below pictures). After being explained the way Marble swordtails created, I spent extra time gazing at his fish pictures, then realized something in common between the two lines; Something is much of consistency, rather than just a common name “Marble”. So, I pasted all pictures on the same page and start sketching my thoughts, which you could see briefly below in this post. Marble, came from the cross of Hamburg swordtail to Red swordtail represent the interference of black pigment and red pigment, which is dominant in each strain. So, when they are expressed on a single body, they (black and red) started to overlap consecutively, or more accurate, they competed to each other showing distinguishable area of strong expression; or in other words, their competition revealed the areas of origin. On those pictures to the left of Marble swordtails, I drew some black arrows pointing the place where black pigment really invaded and dominant over the red, besides the black lateral pigmentation line along the fish body. Those area would also mean where the red pigmentation be weakest; as the matter of fact, black pigmented area isolated and bring up the areas of red origin. Recalling about my analysis 2 years ago, when I hypothesized that the red coloration is controlled by some genes of a family: 1) Red cap [Hr] gene: express from top head, extend to mouth, gill, neck, chest, then pectoral fins. 2) Dorsal red [Dr] gene: express from high back, around body down to belly, up to dorsal fin if being strong enough. 3) Red tail [Tr] gene: express from caudal peduncle covering lower body till anal fin, also may extend to caudal fin if being strong enough. Now, it seems to me the Marble pattern did support my hypothesis: “Following that suggestion, popular Kohaku Koi phenotype [Red-White-Red] is assumed to be the loss of function in Dr gene [Dr-]. As the matter of fact, when being under strong expression, Hr or Tr gene may cover part of Dr expression region, even overlapping each other, but a suppressed Dr [Dr-] always show a triangle of white pattern as shown in the second picture below. Source:https://ctswordtail.weebly.com/blog/kohaku-koi-swordtail-coloration-hypothesis-based-on-phenotype-observation#comments” From the angle of research by observation-based data, my hypothesis would be very limited support, but I hope in the future I could hand on genetics research technique to decode the mystery of Kohaku swordtail. (to be continued…) Tri-color swordtail, is popularly known as Sanke or Showa swordtail when the fish’s body has Red, Black, and White. The name "Sanke or Showa" was borrowed from Koi fish. However, the name Sanke and Showa was long used interchangeably to swordtail hobbyists, rather than a clear distinguish in Koi hobby.
For your further reference, it is said that, Sanke implied White base color on Koi, while Showa, black is dominant in fish background. The creation of Sanke / Showa is pretty much straight forward. You can always create them by cross breeding “red and white” swordtail to a strain of swordtail carrying black pigment. Thus, resulting many varieties of tri-color which I would help you to tell the difference below. Swordtail with black pigments: Popularly, painted swordtail is top candidate. Black pigment on Painted swordtail is scattering along the fish body, but also appear in patch, which is really attractive when expressing in evenly distributing manner. Nevertheless, it’s challenging to control melanomas in Painted swordtail derived strain. One more issue if you ever noticed, Painted swordtail usually has black pigment heavily concentrated at lower body, rather than upper part. The next beautiful candidate is Berlin swordtail. Please don’t mistake Berlin swordtail, which having very fine black spot from head to tail, to Hamburg swordtail (the body is full black). To my opinion, Berlin swordtail is charming in its very unique way. Occasionally, you would see another variety of tri-color swordtail originated from the cross breed with Tuxedo parent. Some breeder of this variety would try to scale down the thick expression of black patch on lateral side of the fish in order to reveal the red and white pattern, to make the fish a harmonious look. What do you know about Red and White swordtail? Kohaku “red eye” swordtail: Kohaku was once favored by fish market that many pet stores were proud to bring them in. At the moment, Kohaku is harder to find in any local fish store for many reasons. Among the reasons, as far as I learned is that US fish farm no longer try to keep them. As the matter of fact, the import fee would make Kohaku swordtail a bit pricier, together with high risk of loss during transportation could have discouraged sellers. In addition to that, being inbred for a long time had degraded the fish line in all coloration, health, and reproductivity. Kohaku “red eye” is actually the albino form of Kohaku. While expressing albinism, Kohaku show brilliant contrast of red and white. The red is described as strong, vivid rubra, while the white color looks milky, solid, not pale or gray as in non-albino form. A variety of Kohaku, which is even more attractive is Tancho swordtail. Still, the name Tancho is rendered from Koi fish, describing those white swordtails with one small little red spot on the top head. If red pigment cover most of the head, the swordtail is referred to Red cap, rather than Tancho. Unfortunately, both varieties are not true breed until now, occasionally appear from Kohaku litters. Peppermint / Pinto / or Marlboro swordtail: Three names, interestingly, refer to one fish strain! Different from Kohaku, Marlboro has unfixed pattern. So, you know Kohaku swordtail popular shows Red head, white upper body, red lower body to caudal part. Marlboro instead express full red on their body since young age, then experiencing the diminishment of red coloration over the body. The level of red pigment reduction is varied by individuals, from very minimal of bald head and clear finnage, to complete loss of red pigment to reveal background or base color, which could be silvery bluish, or white, or dull gray. About three years ago, I learnt about King Lyretail swordtails and found the phenotype very fascinating. While common Lyretail was quite charming, I was somehow disappointed with the fact that roughly 50% of the males within a litter expressing the Lyretail trait, couldn’t breed naturally due to elongated gonopodia; thus, they were technically considered useless to a breeding project. King Lyretail, on the other hand, could breed well with normal sex organ. The origination of King lyre was not known, but according to an article of Mr. Rainer Schultz, Germany in 2010, the trait was observed by him and some other fellow hobbyists. By the time of composing this article, I noticed that King phenotype was seen in Germany, the Ukraine, Turkey, Indonesia, and the USA. The name King Lyretail (alias “Königs Lyra”) was suggested by Mr. Schultz due to the fact that the dorsal fin shape looked crown-like. The King Lyretail indeed resembles the Lyretail model, which showed certain extensions in most fins, for instance, lyre swords at caudal, tipped dorsal, long pectoral and ventral fins. However, the phenotype could be distinguished from common Lyretail by the following details: (1) A King Lyretail individual with normal gonopodium; (2) The dorsal fin has some anterior rays extending longer, and this trait remains visible when co-expressing with the high dorsal fin (aka. hi-fin) trait; (3) the upper sword of the King Lyretail is much shorter than the lower sword, compared to the common Lyretail, where the pair of swords are about the same length. Despite that, some sellers, either mistakenly or intentionally label a shorten gonopodium (manually cut) swordtail as a King Lyretail, the three characteristics listed above should help the hobbyist to avoid taking home undesired fishes. I have since learnt that manually shortening the swordtail sex organ may induce scar tissue forming at the cut site and causing reproductive dysfunction (at least to my experience). The good news with King Lyretail swordtails is they could reproduce and the trait is dominant just like with the common Lyretail. Nevertheless, the not-so-good news is that females born to a Kings Lyretail father didn’t show Lyretail traits. This information was mentioned by Mr. Schultz through his article, and I myself would like to confirm his observation through my breeding experiment during the past three years. I, therefore, refer to King males as King because no King Lyretail females were ever recognized. By matching my first King to an albino common fin Kohaku female swordtail (P generation), I obtained 12 King and 8 common fin males in F1. All F1 females didn’t show any noticeable King Lyretail traits. An F1 King was matched with a non-sibling albino Kohaku female swordtail and produced approximately 45% of King from all males (11:13). Meanwhile, the same F1 King breeder was bred to a non-related hi-fin albino Kohaku female, giving King-to-non King at a ratio of 1:1. The fact that F2 frys popped up some albino individuals gave a positive feedback from the F1 test cross by Mendelian law. King Lyretail is not new to the hobbyist, but remained subtle. So far, there was no published article about this strain. I had a great pleasure talking to a hobbyist named Mr. Ken Hengstebeck, USA. He happened to have six King Lyretails out of a total of twenty within the litter from the cross of wild swordtail Rio Otapa to an albino hi-fin red female. He also reported to see two females in his F1 with lower swords. Interesting enough? His result more likely confirmed what Mr. Schultz mentioned about the phenomenon of the “female with sword.” Unfortunately, according to Mr. Hengstebeck, the parents didn't survive long enough to produce more offspring. The long sword female had died from a bacterial infection while being isolated for delivery and the line was terminated. Another hobbyist who might be very knowledgeable about King Lyretail is Mr. Darrell Nekoba from Hawaii, but I haven’t had a good opportunity to interview him for the topic. Hopefully, my article about the King Lyretail would entertain you and/or ring the bell if you ever came across such strains in your hobby and start sharing your stories to all of us because this strain would become more popular with increasing of people’s awareness. Another reason that makes the King Lyretail being understated to the hobby is because many people believe that King is a new Lyretail variant. That means they would likely be crossed to a Lyretail female with a high expectation to produce 100% Lyretail result. In fact, common Lyretail trait would override King Lyre trait, which induces extension in all fins, including the gonopodium when the two traits co-express in same individual. This means you could only expect to see King Lyretail pop up from common fin juvenile males. In my King Lyretail breeding experiment, I found that not 100% offspring males turned out to be King. The ratio could be even lower than 50% with fairly high credential, as I used a mesh trap to collect the newborn fry. So, when this thing added up to the fact above when you put these two issues together, the chance to expect King Lyretail from the cross with a Lyretail female is even lower. A similar result may happen when fancy swordtail breeders cross Kings to a hi-fin female and then strictly cull out all low fin juveniles when the hi-fin trait starts expressing. So, they can only expect to see hi-fin King Lyretail this way.
King Lyretail and hi-fin are independent traits, so they could be co-expressed in the same individual without any issue. A note that I would like to add is that the King Lyretail trait would not express before sexual maturation like you often see in Lyretail and hi-fin swordtails. This is an important fact to note to prevent hobbyists from culling the King Lyretail batch from a young age. While I only observe the King Lyretail trait to express in males and after sexual maturation, I hypothesized that the trait is sex-linked and/or located on the sex chromosome rather than on an autosomal chromosome like Lyretail does. However, whether the King Lyretail trait is the result of a rare Lyretail gene crossover during chromosome recombination or both are independent in genetics makeup remained to be researched. First published in May, 1953 of the Aquarium journal (Volume XXII, No.5), the article is sought and shared by Mr. Robert Ellermann to the hobby. The article mentioned about a variant of lyretail swordtail, which developed a "true" upper sword at caudal fin. Unfortunately, the strain has never been established. Different from Kings lyre and Common lyretail, there's only the extension of upper caudal fin rays in Double sword variant (all other fins were not elongated). While common lyretail trait shows up in early juvenile age, both Double sword and Kings lyre traits proceed to express after sexual maturation. In general, the double sword phenotype seems to have longer and thicker upper sword than in Kings lyre. So, you shouldn't mistake a double sword swordtail to those common fin individual carrying a pseudo sword which would not breed true at all. For further reference:
The Double swordedtail @ platys.net This morning, I come home and found 2 precious Kohaku females (about due date) jumped out of their tank. What a sad news, but fortunately beautiful sunny day today has saved me from any gloomy feeling. Immediately, I go ahead performing C-section to those females to observe their fry's phenotype. The first female on C-section was virginly matched with a comet tail swordtail. This male was born to my pure Kohaku Koi and Hi-fin non-albino Koi male swordtail from Petu. The fact that he developed comet tail phenotype (another black bar on the upper edge of the tail) gained my interest and I would like to reproduce his phenotype for hobby. But to my surprise, majority of his frys could be easily told to have wag tail (see the picture below) and still have tiny chance of surviving after mother's fatality. So, why this comet tail phenotype produce all wag tail in offspring? I will try to cross this male to a Ruby Red female next time to see if a similar result would happen. Update on Jul 08, 2016 Thanks to Dr. Levine for his explanation on my question: "Wagtail is normally a combination of the Co (comet) gene from maculatus platies and the E gene originally found in swordtails. If this comet-tailed male is the father and the babies are all wags, then the female must have carried two copies of the dominant E gene. I’m assuming that the female was neither comet-tailed nor wag." Then, why Co gene appeared in the father swordtail when his parents never showed any comet phenotype? And the E gene that Dr. Levine have mentioned is actually standing for "Extender" - a gene modifier originated in swordtail. It modify Co gene creating phenotype of fin rays and lip (Wag phenotype) of the fish solid black. So, it does not have any effect without Co gene existence (from Ephie's blog). To an extend, there's another black fin The second albino Koi female paired with the comet tail male above also gave birth to all wag. Mr. Mefford also reported to have Wag offspring from his cross of Bleeding Heart Platy with The Comet pattern to a plain White "Ghost" Hifin Platy. Interesting! Tonight, I felt great to have a chance talking to a new friend named Ken whereas in our conversation, I found out that Ken by chance did a magical thing - discovered kings-lyre trait from his swordtail cross breed. What Ken did is he crossed a Rio Otapa male swordtail (wild type, black markings) to an Albino high fin red mother [P], and the result turned out more than surprise when 6 kings-lyre males appeared in the offspring [F1] out of about total 20. So, the ratio of kings-lyre male in his F1 is about 25%. Plus, he reported to have 2 females, 1 with long lower sword as the regular male swordtail, the other (a high fin female) has a short sword. Isn't that interesting? Unfortunately, the parents didn't survive long enough to carry more births. And the long sword female had died from bacterial infection while being isolating for delivery. Those pictures below provided by Ken. The first 4 pictures are from a kings-lyre male, and the picture #5 is the female sibling with a long lower sword. I know that some of you would ask what is kings-lyre swordtail and may find it confused if having to tell the different between regular lyre swordtail and kings-lyretail. This is what I learned from Rainer about kings-lyre in comparison to regular lyre swordtail:
- KL has uneven pair of sword and the upper sword is much shorter than the bottom sword. - All fins are elongated as in regular lyre, except the gonopodium (sex organ) of the male swordtail is short, thus letting him be breedable in a very natural way. - Also, Rainer suggested that female swordtail born to a king-lyre may has bottom sword protruding from its tail. For further detail of his observation, please refer to Rainer's website. I also added some pictures below to help you with a general idea of how a kings-lyre should look like. Kohaku Koi is always occupying my mind with a huge interest. However, there's not much information about them so far, like their origin, possible phenotypes / polymorphism, and underlying genetics mechanism that created such a cool creature (in my opinion). So, while keep searching for their archive, waiting for more research data introduced by other breeders, I would like to do something ... such as proposing a hypothesis from my observation on Kohaku strain. Although Kohaku Koi swordtail is collectively suggested as a Red and White swordtail model based on their color development (see Red and White swordtail classification by Mr. Rainer Rekord), I still feel very eager to explore more of the mechanism that controls Kohaku coloration because in my opinion it is pretty far different from the one of Piebald swordtail. Here is something I would like to share to fellow breeders: - Kohaku Koi is known as a recessive color gene. However, by observing popular phenotype [Red-White-Red] from my line development as well as from many other breeders' line, I would suggest that Kohaku phenotype is pretty much caused by the loss of function in Red pigment production gene. The suppression of this gene is likely stopping red pigment to be expressed in skin, thus exposing a large white pattern on the host body. - As proposed by some research documents, the red coloration is controlled by some genes of a family: 1) Red cap [Hr] gene: express from top head, extend to mouth, gill, neck, chest, then pectoral fins. 2) Dorsal red [Dr] gene: express from high back, around body down to belly, up to dorsal fin if being strong enough. 3) Red tail [Tr] gene: express from caudal peduncle covering lower body till anal fin, also may extend to caudal fin if being strong enough. Following that suggestion, popular Kohaku Koi phenotype [Red-White-Red] is assumed to be the loss of function in Dr gene [Dr-]. As the matter of fact, when being under strong expression, Hr or Tr gene may cover part of Dr expression region, even overlapping each other, but a suppressed Dr [Dr-] always show a triangle of white pattern as shown in the second picture below. Red cap phenotype (picture #3): In a rare case, we see a phenotype called Red cap, which is only Hr express on the host body, both Dr and Tr are suppressed. And if never before you found a true Kohaku Koi with milky white head without any red spot, would you think Hr gene is lethal when under suppression? Orange blossom phenotype (picture #1): I saw some people called a non-standard Kohaku Koi (with white spot at stomach) as Orange blossom. But from my experience, this phenotype showed 100% when you cross a pure Kohaku Koi to a Red swordtail in purpose of increase redness of the Kohaku strain. That meant the F1 phenotype is heterozygous Kohaku Koi [Dr Dr-]. When this phenotype happened in F2, I would consider those individuals to have low vibrant Red pigment production, and are often culled out because F3 (by interbreeding F2) resulted very bad Kohaku pattern. (to be continued...) A short journal (JAN 27, 2016)
So, I got a share of some beautiful Albino Hi-fin Red coming today. They are still juveniles, but I should have enough time to wait for them ready because my new candidates are still young. Then I started pairing this way - Breeding model for P: 1, 2) Hi-fin Red Albino Male (♂: Hh DrDr pp) x Lo-fin Kohaku Albino Female (♀: hh Dr-Dr-[*] pp) then 3,4) is a reciprocal cross model of 1,2) as below 3,4) Hi-fin Red Albino Female (♀: Hh DrDr pp) x Lo-fin Kohaku Albino Female (♂: hh Dr-Dr- pp) Expectation: - I would expect to have F1 Hi-fin Red Albino-carrier (Hh DrDr- pp) from breeding model 1,2,3,4). Note that the Hi-fin Red Albino parents are siblings. And Lo-fin Kohaku Albino are cousins. Result: ... to be filled out Choosing F1 breeders: - Hi-fin individuals from F1 will be selected. - Dark red color is preferred. - Good growth rate and long maturity age are a plus. - Eventually, shape of Hi-fin and size of the fishes are matter. Note: If offspring quality between the two parallel lines [1 and 2] and [3 and 4] is not too difference, F1 breeder males will perform reciprocal cross to the other line's P Koi females. And a similar method would be apply for F1 breeder females x P Koi males. Breeding model for F1: 1, 2) Hi-fin Red Albino-carrier Males (♂: Hh DrDr- pp) x Lo-fin Kohaku Albino Female (♀: hh Dr-Dr-pp) then 3,4) is a reciprocal cross model of 1,2) as below 3,4) Hi-fin Red Albino-carrier Males (♀: Hh DrDr- pp) x Lo-fin Kohaku Albino Female (♂: hh Dr-Dr- pp) Expectation: - I would expect to have F2 Hi-fin Kohaku Albino-carrier (Hh Dr-Dr- pp) from breeding model 1,2,3,4). Note that from my last experiment done on Lyretail trait, F2 offpsring was not completely showing Kohaku model, thus required more work to improve Kohaku pattern continuing to F3 or further. Result: ... to be filled out Choosing F2 breeders: - Hi-fin individuals from F2 will be selected. - Dark red color and strong clear Kohaku pattern are preferred. - Good growth rate and long maturity age are a plus. - Eventually, shape of Hi-fin and size of the fishes are matter. [*] I assumed that Kohaku trait is the loss of red pigment on Dorsal, that's why I symbolized Koi trait as Dr- (Dorsal Red with negative sign) I always admire those breeders who possess Hi-fin Albino Koi swordtail, so I decided to start a project on my own to transfer Hi-fin trait onto my Albino Koi swordtail line. At the moment I wrote this post, I am having a hi-fin female in hand. She's dark red, black eyes, about 6 months old, strong and active just like her mother [♀: HhPP] and her partner, a huge male albino bright red, unknown age [♂: hhpp]. So, this cross would likely bring me 50% Hi-fin albino carrier [F1: 50% HhPp - 50% hhPp]. I will select 10 hi-fin from their offspring and perform an interbreed to create a new generation F2 with genotype: [Hhpp] / phenotype albino hi-fin swordtail. Breeding scheme and result: P: ♀: HhPP ♂: hhpp F1: Expecting result 50% HhPp - 50% hhPp More than 20+ frys (F1.0) were collected on Jan 1st, 2016 100% phenotype is black eye, orange - gray color [Pp]. Very minimal dead at birth (only 2 recorded), other 2 with air bladder syndrome. Frys are active, well eating pattern, and good growth rate. The mother is really a hungry fry-eater. Second batch would likely be dropped within 3 weeks. [Another male (very old, small size, hi-fin, dark red) have been matching with this mother on Jan 17, 2016. The 3rd and 4th batch will be compared to the 1st and 2nd about growth rate, color pattern, and hi-fin ratio. I hope this slow old male would be successful in passing on his traits to help me understand more about coloration. (This scheme was discontinued because the female died during laboring of her 2nd delivery, so I won't have a chance to expect the 3rd and 4th batch as describing above. Sadly!)] Update on June 25, 2016: So, on the video clip below, the 3rd tank to the right is those offspring of the parents above (both parents are now deceased). Within both batch's population, I collected about 15 individuals with high fin traits (the tip of dorsal fin showed). All are albino carriers with black eyes, slightly dark red (color still develop over the time, may turn to dark red when the fishes get older), healthy (no death along their development) and very active. They were born around winter time, so I wouldn't expect their size to be huge as the parents soon because developmental rate is usually much slower for those born and raise in lower than optimal temperature. The F1 HhPp [Hh: High fin (het.), Pp: Albino carrier] interbred should yield 50% albino and 50% wild type in F2. And I plan to save those best albino high fin individuals to strengthen the line of Albino blood red. Those wild type high fin, on the other hand, are good for any red swordtail project. Lyre swordtail male is beautiful, but because I am inexperienced in artificial insemination, having a very high ratio of male lyretail made me feel the project giving too much waste. Fortunately, I read about Kings lyre swordtail from Mr. Rainer's website and was very fascinated with it. So, I spent a lot of time to hunted for a few species of kings lyre to restart my lyre swordtail project from a new direction. Having done many try-and-error with all kings lyre swordtail males I collected from many sellers, but it seemed hopeless until a couple months ago, I got my first batch. The fact that all females used in my experiment are virginly paired to the kings lyre male, plus those females are all albino Kohaku swordtail (a good test model because females are fully recessive to all traits). Below is the video showing the Kings lyre father in my experiment: .My very first batch of swordtail frys born to the kings lyre father has 50% black eyed, bricked red body and 50% red eyed, albino yellowish gold color. A couple month passed, I was frustrated to find out that more than 70% of the wild type juveniles in the batch developed high fin, when only about 20% of albino has the high trait. This much difference between the two numbers kept me confused until present without any reasonable explanation (the ratio of high fin trait in both wild type and albino should be roughly the same at about 50%). Some events had shadowed my project that the laboring mother jumped out of her tank during a night, and the father with some of the best high fin boys were killed in an accident (bleach leaked to the tank). When those juveniles started to sex out, I was pretty much disappointed to say there was not any little clue of lyretail sighted, especially when I lost the parents. F1 inbreeding is the only way to keep the project go on, I thought. Should kings lyre trait is recessive, I doubted. Within an action of culling process, I isolated 04 early mature low fin males, "exiled" them to the outdoor pond testing the strain's resistance to temperature. Beautiful sunshine and cool rain water does positively contribute to the outgrowth of those guys; and guess what? I visited the pond today and was delighted that they are not only survived the low 60F, but also bore double swords; which meant they are carried on kings lyre trait from the father. Another detail is I found 2 female siblings (or at least their conformation convinced me their sex) with a bottom sword, an interesting fact was shared in Mr. Rainer's webiste. I will see how those females develop and keep you all updated later. So, kings lyre is not recessive at all if it appeared in F1. The fact that only male showed up lyretail trait does confirmed my hypothesis that kings lyre indeed lyretail gene resides on or links to Y (male) chromosome. Would a female with sword mean any thing to this inheritance model? Maybe some point of time, swordtail crossing to platy creating hybrid form that, for example, the pair of sex chromosome [WY] sexed out a female, yet has ability to protrude a sword. Also read related post about kings lyre swordtail and sex determination in platy fish. The video below is F1 kings lyre born in my project: Talking about Red-White swordtail, Mr. Rainer Rekord suggested a classification of 5 types based on the region of red pigment allocation along the body of the swordtail as the following:
The combination of III, IV and V can have the same effect as II (white belly). Variants I, II and the two combinations can expand and combine different. Until the red covers the whole body. Therefore, this breed animals may have little red. (Source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/swordredwhite/) The gallery below is just an example of color region that red pigment may consistently express on the swordtail body (no matter which strain of swordtail that you could identify.) Thanks to Mr. Rainer Rekord for his observation. I myself found that the classification system is very helpful to understand Red and White patterns in swordtail strains. Yes, there're a couple strains (in fact, different genes) that express various patterns. Personally, I would explain the system as following: 1. Pinto, Peppermint or Pieball strain: Type I: Usually see red pigment express on the lower body, extending along lateral line, forward as far as to the gill, yet narrower, and backward to the caudal portion. As describing by Mr. Karl Trochu, he had another strain that he had obtained from Mr. Darrell Mefford in 2006. It produces 'all white', 'bleeding heart' (mentioned by Mr. Rainer Rekord above), as well as as red-spotted offspring. The juveniles fish change color several times before they reach maturity, making this strain a very interesting one to work with. Type II: Pieball irregular patches between red and white. This is rare, but I tried to find a picture to depict this type as in the gallery above. Variant I & II: See picture above 2. Kohaku Koi or Santa claus swordtail: When it says Koi swordtail, please don't mistake it with the Red eye Kohaku. Koi is a separate trait of color expression, representing Red and White pigmentations, while albino is about the loss of black pigment in the eyes thus resulting Red eyes (the body also suffers this loss, making the white band of Albino Koi swordtail look milky white color). In other words, you would find Kohaku Koi with Black eyes also. Type III: Red cap. The gene seems to priorly express on the head cap, then extend its red pigment further to the back, wrapping around the gill, chest, but not the belly. Red cap only is a rare phenotype produced by Kohaku Koi. As the matter of fact, the cross between two red cap would yield a higher chance of red cap in offspring. 3. Red Saddleback or Pineapple swordtail: Type IV: usually see in Pineapple strain with Red pigment cover the dorsal fin, high back (saddleback) down to the tail. 4. Red and White swordtail: Type V: commonly called red and white swordtail (may be an ambiguous name), but easy to specify by finding the red pigmentation to express in the lower body part upto caudal portion. The upper body part and head is often offset white or light blue (under light). A small Story: I started keeping swordtails from the age of 6. At that time, I was introduced to a couple of Red swordtails, a widely popular specie in the hobbyist; even up-to-now, people could find them easily in most local fish store (LFS). If you ever know about Swordtail, they are hardy and easy to keep. Not as colorful as guppy, but Swordtail makes it own way to stand long in the hobbyist favor. I remembered clearly how excited I was when I first spotted a Tuxedo in a tank full of hundreds of red fishes. I was like almost jumping into the tank to catch him with a tiny fish net in hand, not an easy job as it took over an hour; I believed I had brought up such a huge dissatisfaction to the owner of that LFS that I would never want to see me again. :D Later I learned about Wag, then I felt more interest in gold body Painted sword. Not until 2009, the first time I saw Koi swordtail and fabulously brought them home. They looked amazing. Unfortunately, they didn't give any birth but all died after about 4 months. Then they became a very scarce stock even though I had spent lots of time to 'hunt for' them in many many LFS around the city. In 2013, when having a chance to come back to hobby, I equipped myself a fish tank in bed room and Koi swordtail is the fish that I was craving for first. Commercial Koi swordtail is often come with low quality, especially when you learned about the standards of how a Swordtail breeder should be. It takes more than a year to build up a breeder from commercial strains as we should focus on selective breeding, cross breeding to improve size, shape and form, fins and tail, and color. I am still learning and keep improving my skill to build up the breeder of my own strain. It will take a long time, but it's worthy for a hobby! Breeding scheme: I started by a cross breeding a fragile albino Koi male to a hardy, fruitful lyretail Ruby red female, call Parent (P) stage. The Ruby red female in this breeding model is from Mr. Robert Ellermann. She's the offspring Red Alpha strain, so I hope that a cross breed with her would carry all good traits from this female over to stabilize my strain. When I received the Ruby red females, one of them showed pregnancy. So, I suspected that the lyretail female had already been hit. A month after her arrival, she didn't develop any sign of pregnancy, yet it doesn't enough to conclude she's virgin. But I still kept her with my top breeder (pretty old age) and crossed my finger that I will have his offspring delivered by the Ruby red female. What I noticed from her offspring in comparing with other pre-hit female siblings is majority of F1 has a brighter red than other frys from other females. So, my hope was still there :D In the limited condition of out-grow tank, I hardly could keep good track of which frys came from the Lyretail female in the project (that's my big mistake), so I had to cull-out all, but preserved only Lyretail offspring (a control to tell the babies were exactly offspring of the female breeder). Then the best F1 lyretail female was chosen to test cross to albino Koi swordtail males. This assorted F1 female was pretty aggressive when she had knocked out all 3 males from the breeding tank (these males didn't survive because 3/4 smaller size comparing to the female). But in return, she dropped amazing number from her first delivery. The F2 batch was born on JUL 18, 2015. As I presented, The parents (P) are Lyretail Ruby red female x Albino Koi male (F1). So, the female parent is suspected to be heterozygous of the Pair: Lyretail Ruby red female x Albino Koi male (P). This offspring count (F2) is about 138, with roughly 62 Koi pattern (under sunlight observation), 2 Wag pattern (I would like say ratio 50/50 between Red/Koi, totally fit with a test cross model). All Koi patterned babies were preserved representing F2 Ruby Koi generation. The fact that all offspring are Black eyes even in F2 with no albino made me hard to confirm the heterozygous female parent except her genotype is [L_ RK ++]; whilst the male genotype is NN KK aa L: Lyretail; _: wild card; N: Normal fin and tail (wild type); R: Red pattern; K: Koi pattern; + Black eye (wild type); a: Red eye (albino) More detailed video about development stages of this batch could be viewed at my Youtube channel
At two half months old, this batch underwent another culling process that top 6 lyretail females would remain as core breeders for the next generation. With some improvements in diet, water condition, and space, these fishes seemed to achieve a better growth rate than their mother before. And I am hoping from my pure albino Koi project, some brilliant albino male would come out. F3 breeding scheme: ... (to be continued) I used to have a post telling about Peppermint (Red Pigment Suppressor - RPS gene) is a recessive trait to Red pattern (the most popular pattern of domesticated Swordtail since its first introduction to hobbyists in 1922.) The oldest offspring batch from last test reached 3 months old, yet still not showing any RPL (Red pigment loss)
The next test that I am coming up with is to test Peppermint on Albino Koi pattern. So far, I am still using the full-white peppermint ♂ in last test to cross with an Albino Koi female. Why Albino female? As being proved before, Albino red eye is recessive to Normal (or Wild type) Black eye, so it would be easier to expect the F1 should yield 100% black eyes, thus playing as a control for the test. Also when the frys come out, I would like to see if the trait is dominant (suffering RPL at some point of their development) or recessive (koi pattern shows on some or all individuals at birth). B - Peppermint male x Albino Koi female: F1? (Picture or clip of the Peppermint male is posted here ... May 4, 2015: For share this time is some lyretail juveniles which remained after culling process. They are about 3 months old, well-shaped, black eyes, red body.
The most thoroughly studied group of fish for the genetics of sex determination are the platyfishes and swordtails of the genus Xiphophorus (for detailed reviews see Kallman, 1984, Kazianis et al., 2004 and Volff and Schartl, 2001). These fish nicely demonstrate the variability of sex determination systems in fish.
In the platyfish, X. maculatus, three different sex chromosomes: W, X, and Y occur. Females may have WY, WX or XX genotypes. The males are either YY or XY. Interestingly YY males are fully viable and fertile, indicating that no essential genes have been deleted during the evolution of the Y. WW females have not been found in natural habitats, but can be produced in the laboratory and are viable as well. Sex determination in this three chromosome situation is explained at present by two different hypotheses: The first ( Kallman, 1984) proposes a network of male determining genes and regulatory genes distributed over the different types of sex chromosomes and autosomes, while the second ( Volff and Schartl, 2001) favors a dosage dependent mechanism based on one gene being present in different copy numbers on the three types of sex chromosomes. The stable sex chromosomal determination mechanism in the platyfish can be overridden by rare alleles of autosomal modifiers found in some natural populations (Kallman, 1984) and by exogenous influences, e.g. X-ray irradiation (Anders et al., 1969) and steroid hormone treatment (Dzwillo and Zander, 1967). For the green swordtail, X. hellerii, some strains have been shown to be WZ–ZZ ( Kazianis et al., 2004) while others exhibit a so-called polyfactorial system ( Peters, 1964), meaning that the sex-determining genes are spread over several chromosomes, which additively or cooperatively influence gonad development. Other species like X. variatus and X. xiphidium appear to exhibit a simple XX–XY sex determination mechanism. A modification of the XX–XY system is described for two species, X. nezahualcoyotl and X. milleri. Most males are XY and most females are XX. However, a second Y chromosome, Y′, exists, which together with an autosomal modifier is responsible for XY′ females. Consequently, YY′ males can be produced ( Kallman, 1984). Another modification of the XY system was found in X. nigrensis. In this species all XY fish are males. There is an autosomal locus with two alleles, A and a, which affects sex determination in XX fish. If the genotype is AA, the fish will be female, and if aa, the XX individual will be male. Aa genotypes are predominantly female, but sometimes (approx. 5%) such fish develop into males ( Kallman, 1984). Attempts towards isolation of the sex determining gene(s) in Xiphophorus are underway. BAC contigs starting from marker loci that flank the sex determining region on the X. maculatus X and Y chromosomes have been established covering at present approx. one megabase on each side ( Froschauer et al., 2002). Source: A comparative view on sex determination in medaka A- Peppermint male x Ruby red female: 100% F1 looked like the mother (Ruby red) This is a full-white Peppermint male swordtail. He used to have red pigment on half of the body, but the red pigment was gradually suppressed, thus he turned out to be a full-white individual. He was crossed to 2 Ruby red females to test if the traits is recessive to normal red color. Both results harvested 100% red offspring. All are well developed and totally look the same as their mom. No red pigment suppression is found along their development up to 3.5 months (some of the juveniles mature to be males at this age). So, the trait [peppermint] is recessive. (See the video below to better view the male's color. He's so fast to be caught in my phone camera.) In this case, I hypothesize that the RPS [Red Pigment Suppressor] gene required a homologous pair to express. As a matter of fact, the backcross of F1 to its father should express peppermint trait in F2. In case of the father didn't survive during the breeding project, I will interbreed F1 individual to each other (3 pairs) with the hope to reproduce the RPS trait in F2. The Fish Culturist, Volume 1 (This is the first issue of THE FISH CULTURIST, a monthly publication inaugurated by the Pennsylvania Fish Culturists’ Association.)
- Orange Swordtail, of C. Vowinkel. - Green Swordtail, of J. R. Guckes. - Platypoccelia Pulchra, of G. Pocock. - Platy. Rubra, of J. S. Nelson. - Platy. Nigra, of G. Pocock. The Board of Directors reported recommendations to limit the swordtail-moon-lish hybrids to three classes for the purpose of the current competition, eliminating the so-called “red-head" hybrid, as being merely a color phase of the rubra hybrids and pulchra hybrids, being found in both crosses; (The Fish Culturist, Feb 1921) A couple first of my breeding projects weren't very successful. Among dis-satisfactions were the size of swordtail progeny which is smaller than their parents. I also noted that youngsters proceeded early sex maturation, which could be the reason for the reduction of growth rate or even cessation of body growth. There're couple things that control the maximum potential size of my swordtail could reach: - Inheritance - Diet - Captive environment - Early sex maturation A- Inheritance: I usually see Kohaku koi swordtail at medium to small size when purchasing them from Aquabid breeders and local fish store. As far as I was told Koi swordtail is among the youngest strain created in late '90. It is clearly that this strain was a hybrid. An origination of Platys ancestor as well as long time interbred could have contributed to its small size in comparing with other swordtail strains. So, a cross breed with "giant" swordtail would help to improve the situation. Nevertheless, crossbreeding a Koi swordtail individual to another strain of Swordtail would significantly decrease the quality of bi-color band. And "Koi" coloration is still mysterious to me. B- Diet: The fishes are fed with Brine shrimp twice a day, and Hikari pellets for livebearers during the day. C- Captive environment: At the moment, I could only keep 20 gallon tanks in my recreation corner. So the population is often around 20 swordtails each tank. Water change is done weekly at 80-90% and all tanks are treated with Aquarium salt to promote acclimation. The temperature is maintained at low optimal 70 - 72 Fahrenheit. D- Early sex maturation: I believe that social environment has some effects on early sex maturation. From my observation, late mature males usually develop bigger body size; but these males in my tanks were usually those being bullied by a dominant character which made them often hide away for a long time until they were bigger and stronger to fight back. Then I found interesting piece of journal mentioned that "females and males adjust their age at maturation in response to visual cues of male sexual ornamentation in the current environment: females matured earlier, whereas males matured later if all the mature males seen had large ornaments" (Walling et. al., 2007). So, I designed that as early as a male is sexed out, I placed him in the male tank and hoping that the aggression of dominant males would slower his maturation due to suppression. Without any female in the male tank, it seemed that dominant males were also less aggressive after all. That way, females would be preserved to be virgin, avoid sexual harassment from males, and fully developed until they are ready for brand new breeding projects. - Males and females are separated as soon as they are sexed out. - The effect of having a dominant male may help suppress the sex maturation of the others, thus leaving more time for the other males to fully develop. - Females would also have more time to develop if avoid sexual harassment from male swordtails. Citations and References: Green swordtails alter their age at maturation in response to the population level of male ornamentation Craig A Walling, Nick J Royle, Neil B Metcalfe, Jan Lindström Biol. Lett. 2007 3 144-146; DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2006.0608. Published 22 April 2007 Females matured earlier in the long-sworded treatment than in the short-sworded treatment, while the converse was true for males. Females from the long-sworded treatment were smaller than females in the short-sworded treatment, whereas males did not differ in size between the treatments. (Walling et. al., 2007) The white male in video clip is offspring of Marlboro swordtail, however its red pigmentation decreased over the time and eventually disappeared; at the moment, he is totally white with a horizontal light neon blue along his body. I haven't got any knowledge about Marlboro swordtail, but so far I heard that it's normal for Marlboro swordtail to partial or totally lose its red pigmentation over developmental stages. My questions are: - Is red pigmentation fixed when a red swordtail is born or the pigmentation is produced consecutively during its lifespan to maintain the red color? - Is there a gene factor that suppress the red pigmentation production which caused the loss of red pigmentation (LP) in Marlboro swordtail? - Will LP a dominant or recessive inheritance factor? - What happen if I cross this Marlboro male to normal red female or to a albino red female? Advantages: - This male is active breeder, he loves chasing after a huge size red female. Disadvantages: - This strain I collected from a farm in FL. He was shipped together with his siblings (males and females) but all of them suffered heavy fungus on the way to my place. Only him recovered and survived which is showing his good resistance, but not sure if the past disease had any effect on his fertility. He's the smallest swordtail comparing to his siblings. Breeding model: Due to limited time and space for my hobby, my swordtail fries are often kept in common tanks categorized by size range during their developmental stages. This avoid small bodies from starving due to food competition. Culling process usually goes along with each stage, thus it make my tracking list much easier for record and observation. This breeding scheme is to observe if LP has any effect on Albino red. Next step: - I will cross this male to normal red female in another project. - And his offspring with Albino red female in this project will be back cross with the father and to its sibling to see if the effect get stronger (double dose or triple dose, maybe) P:
♀: Albino standard Koi pattern, normal dorsal fin. ♂: Albino, blood red, sail-fin. F1: In general, I obtained 100% albino, mostly white body at birth; light orange color visibly expressed at 3 days old, and Koi pattern is visible at about 1 week old. At birth: 40 counted, not sure how many were re-absorbed by the mom (no breeding net deployed).
Some disadvantages: - Limited tanks and breeding supplies for the project. - Set many standards within this very first try. Only one trait should be tested and harvested at a time would likely increase the success. - Cannot keep up with regular feeding and water changing schedule, thus affecting the growth rate of the filial. 1. All fancy strains of swordtails (Xiphophorus hellerii) have mixed ancestries with Xiphophorus maculatus (moon platies) and/or Xiphophorus variatus (variatus platies). 2. The first Xiphophorus helleri showing an elongated dorsal appeared in the late 1950's in one of Mrs. Telma L. Simpson's fish tanks. This housewife turned fish breeder kept working with that single male until she fixed the trait. It is from her South Californian hatchery that it all started. In the 1960's and 1970's, top breeders developed all kind of fancy strains of both swordtails and platies… up to today. The most famous (to named a few) are Dr. Joanne Norton, Fred Morita, Glenn Takeshita, Rosario Arijon, Darrell E. Mefford, Bobby Ellermann, and Dr. Roy Levine. To read more about the complete history of hifin swordtails, read Mr. Ellermann’s most excelent article: 3. Two low-fin swordtails (that is fish with regular dorsal fin) will NOT produce hifin offspring, even if they have hifin parentage in their blood line. If they were to, then one would have just duplicated Mrs. Simpson’s original hifin mutation. If not technically impossible, still highly improbable... I have lately been made aware that Greg Sage of selectaquatics.com from Colorado has raised a strain of HIFIN Xiphophorus Mayae, so the gene mutation has once again naturally expressed itself. 4. Two hifin swordtails will always produce a small percentage of low-fin offspring. As far I know, there is no homozygous hifin for the Xiphophorus genus. Also a cross between low-fin and hifin swordtails produces roughly 50% hifin offspring. 5. SAILFIN swordtails are nothing more than a 'descriptive label' for HIFIN swordtails possessing an elongated dorsal fin with more branched rays, hence producing a sailfin looking dorsal (both wider and longer). Think of them as 'la creme de la creme' in breeding hifin swordtails. Such specimens seem to posses a genetic modifier allowing their dorsal ray to branch out. At least it is my limited understanding of it. 6. How are "sailfin" swordtails produced? Simply by selective breeding, culling, and hard work. The genetics of hifin swordtail is complicated and yet not fully understood. It is clear that if a strain of sailfin swordtail is not drastically maintained, it quickly regresses to producing more basic hifin fish. If one wishes to understand more about the genetics and science of hifin swordtails while viewing photos of splendid fish, then simply visit Dr. Levine’s website… everything you ever wanted to know and/or understand about hifin swordtails is there. 7. American Livebearer Association which is an organization worth belonging to if one is interested in livebearers in general. Most members are more into wild livebearers, but a few dedicated breeders of fancy Xiphophorus are still hanging around. A FEW LINKS OF INTEREST: - Dr. Roy Levine - http://www.xhifin.org/ - An authority in genetics of Xiphophorus fancy finage, and a true hobbyist at heart. His results and photos speak for themselves. - A great hobbyist breeder; of fancy Xiphophorus: Ela from Poland: http://xiphophorus-ela.blogspot.com/ - German website dedicated to Fancy strains of Xiphophorus: http://www.platys.net/ - An inspiring senior fancy Sail-fin swordtail breeder - Mr. Karl Trochu: http://miamiswordtails.weebly.com/ - If you are interested in wild and/or fancy xiphophorus, feel free to join this specialized Facebook's page:International Xiphophorus Breeder - French Livebearer Association: http://france.vivipare.free.fr - German Livebearer Association: http://www.guppy-molly-xipho.de/ To anyone who is seeking for quality specimens, two commercial breeders who produce exceptional fish are recommended by Mr. Karl Trochu " If I had to get any livebearers, I would get them from those two hatcheries, period!" - http://selectaquatics.com/ - Greg Sage form Erie, Colorado - USA - http://goliadfarms.com/ - Charles and Susan Clapsaddle from Goliad Texas - USA This post is credited to Mr. Karl Trochu and his website at http://miamiswordtails.weebly.com/ |
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