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)
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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. 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 ... 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 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. |
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