In-breeding and line breeding.

[mbdave]

Do any of you worry about in-breeding or line breeding clownfish? I ask because I got a pair that I figure is probably from the same parents which alot "seem" to be in the hobbiest world. I fear weaker immune systems and more deformaties. Now has anyone tried to remedy this by trading or buying two clownfish from different breeders? Please let me know your thoughts because myself I have a pair of A perculas "white" and am thinking of trading one for another white that is from a different breeder to remedy this, again your thoughts?

TY,
Dave

 

[Uslanja]

Very interesting subject Dave! I have and still do breed German Shepherd Dogs for many years now. I am very familiar with inbreeding and line breeding. Inbreeding is not something that I would consider, however line breeding certainly is. That being said, with dogs we have a lot of record keeping and breed registries established. Do these types of records exist with fish? More to your question; breeding a pair of unrelated fish would be an outcross with unpredictable results. Your concerns about inbreeding are valid and might result in compromised subjects to a greater degree than an outcross. Genetics are not predictable. I am not familiar with the way fish are bred, so I am definitely looking forward to learning more. Great question!
Dave

 

[dexterd]

I have heard that you can inbreed fish for up to 10 generations without negative results. In the wild, fish naturally inbreed as the fish in a colony are usually related or siblings. When the dominant fish dies, the next in command takes over. Of course natural selection occures in the wild and only the soundest fish survive. In captivity, any kind of fish regardless of faults, can survive. I am working with some inbreeding on some selected black occys without tail strips. I am trying to see if that is genetic or nutritional. i think a solid black or one strip black occy would be cool. If the strips are genetic like in the naked percs then it is possible that black occys could be genetically manipulated to have only one strip or no strips. Although I am finding few misbars in the lines of blacks i am working with so a misbar is unusual for me.
Just my 2 cents....Teresa
Sooner Seahorse LLC

 

[mbdave]

Thanks for the responces thus far.What brings up my question is I bred Siberian Huskies years ago and also would not dream of in-breeding them and if I ever considered line breeding I would have done much study on it. Now with fish Teresa do you remember where you heard that up to 10 generations is OK? I have not done any research my self yet and if you could remember Teresa it would give me a direction to look if there are any professional aquaculture people out there your input would be of great value..

 

[swimmer4uus]

Hopefully this kinda pertains to your question. Further down I beleive it does.

Ever since my picasso and his WC perc girlfriend started cleaning of spots of rocks next to their host frogspawn (now torch), I've been trying to find published papers on clownfish genetics. The information out there isn't as conclusive as I had hoped.

Years ago when I was young, I was in 4-H and raised rabbits. Their coloration patterns where very basic, dominance and recessive. I researched, and found every combination of coloring patterns I could get by breeding all my broodstock, and did this nice little presentation on it. That was back when I was 12 or so.

Naturally, I'm into keeping fish now, so I'm trying to find gentic information there. Most the studies done by Soren Hansen in Maine, and ORA in Florida have had some sort of financial backing by grants. Under these terms, the focus must be presented as trying to find alternative ways to collecting wild specimens. Specifically with Soren, they are trying to find out exact nutritional needs of young fry, to better understand the rearing process. That's about where the studies stop.

There's some speculation into the gentics, how alleles turn on, and off, the baring of our clownfish. One of the ideas is that the baring is controlled in a patterned way when the fry are developing. The first "sensor" turns on, telling the DNA to start producing the first bar. Shortly after that, the allele is turned off, once the head bar is complete. Then it goes on to the second, and third respectively, turning on, and off. Now, environmental changes can interrupt and distort this turning on and off of the alleles. Sometimes, the allele can forget to turn off, producing....cha ching! An expensive, all white clown.

From what I have also read, the parents of many of these, do NOT look anything like the juvis. Some are even produced by normal looking Perculas, although I suspect they are of picasso, or extreme misbar lineage.

There is a guy on a couple other forums, that has JUST got an all white to start breeing. He has an onyx female, with the Platinum perc. I believe they just laid their third clutch. He's trying to raise the fry so hopefully he'll publish some results of the phenotypes there.

Sorry for the long post. Hope some of it makes sense.

 

[Clownfish518]

There are other factors besides genetics involved in domestic breeding.Dogs were bred from wolves, and there are no genes for brown eyes, curly hair, or floppy ears in wolves, not even recessives.

Look into the fox breeding in Russia last century which shed light that hormones have an affect genes in determining physical traits same as genes.

I know that cardinals will have deformities if inbred too much. I have seen deformed gobies from ORA. It seems common sense that you bring fresh genes into the broodstock on occasion.

 

[swimmer4uus]

I've seen here at a LFS badly formed perculas that they get from ORA. Some of their picasso's I speculate are inbred just due to the defomations I'm personally seen

 

[dexterd]

I would never do it in dogs either. In the wild the sibling or near relatives are not allowed to breed to their father in the pack. Mother(dominant *****) keeps the *****es in check and they are not allowed to breed. Sometimes they don't even come into season. I am not saying I would recommend it. I am just telling you what i read. I believe it was on mofib. Also check the book by Hoff as I thought that was where I read it. Of course any genetic defect that is present will multiply with every subsequent generation.
Teresa

 

[mbdave]

Real interesting conversation here for sure. All your points are very good but what I am asking is not on stripes or looks but overall health. I fear that in-breeding would play havoc with thier well being for instance giving them a weak immune system, or more deformaties like enlarged jaws or mis-shaped heads. I worry that in the excitement of raising the fry and making a few dollars the relationship between the fish gets ignored. What I might do is try spawning a pair of known brother and sister clowns and do a survey on general health of the fry and then compare it to other pairs that are not known to be relatives. I have awhile before I will be ready to do this so I have plenty of time to plan and research, "what do you guys think?" maybe the results would help me and others in breeding and raising higher numbers of better quality fish. Then again there is probably this info out there so if anyone has it please do share.

 

[swimmer4uus]

I guess you'd only really know when you start to see the fry developing. Personally, I'd encourage your pair to spawn, raise a couple batches, and see if you're getting any deformaties. Once you have one spawing, it wouldn't be that hard swapping out the males. I would definantly love to have a platinum female, with an onyx male. Then, a picasso female, with a platinum male. I would probably stop right there, and be pretty darn happy.

 

[illidan]

Well a lot of the external formations of the jaws etc could be too poor rearing. Im pretty sure that if you inbred you would be a bit more prone to it, then you would have to cull more. Regardless some breeders still sell he fish because they may have a bad looking bodies, yet they have cool patterns. Without any kind of inbreeding i don't think we would get the cool markings we have now.

 

[rrcg50]

i have 2 of doni's(woodstock) snocassos that just started breeding. they have no deformities that i can see. i will be rearing the babies and see what happens. all my other pairs are wild caught so i pressently have a onyx pair that is spauning(wc), and i just paired up my whyoming white with a wild caught occ(my avatar). i do not believe there health gets compromised but certain deformities will be exacerbateduch as small gil plates and head deformities, now one way to reduce this will be to bring in new broodstock such as a wc male or female and breed with the one you have, after doing this breed the "good" genetic baby with another wc male or female and then that will reduce the chances to next to zero.
now from what i read and personally seen from breeding water quality will cause more defects than anything(misbarring, gil deformities, head deformities) that are not present in the parents. seeing this we must ask is it genetics that are causing the deformities or poor rearing conditions