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| DNA issue... | |
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| Topic Started: Sep 7 2008, 04:18:33 PM (156 Views) | |
| Post #1 Sep 7 2008, 04:18:33 PM | Suzy |
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Guys, I really have an issue. Help me think without emotion? I have tried to raise seahorses for a few years, and I really love it. I love waking up to newborn fry, and thinking about them all day and hurrying home to feed them! I love showing them off at parties and working them through landmarks ( My babies ate frozen food today!) and watching them get color. I tried a few different species through the last few years and each has their challenges. My best run was H erectus, but I am not sure if that is because they are "easier" or because I learned stuff... So, I was not able to raise H reidi at all. They were my first experience and looking back, I now see my mistakes. After that run, I tried H erectus, knowing more and having a bit more experience, I was able to move them to 4 generations. The fith generation had some gorgeous colors and super personalities, but they all got a mungooo and expired...I look back now and feel every generation got weaker and more problematic. The things I did for prior generations just didn't work as well. Was it from brother and sister mating with their uncles? Works in Hilldale but.... So, here is my issue. I have no mated pairs and need to get a few more fish. But which species? H erectus: Before my fifth generation expired, they had babies. There are 3 stunted wee ones now, finally eating frozen food. Their grandfather awaits them in the main display. Their grandmother had quit eating and is fading away. This species hitches at birth, can eat BBS at birth and are considered "easier" than other species )although no one can actually raise them enough to make a profit!). I got some gorgeous H reidi a few weeks back. I have 2 males, 1 female. Their fry (when they mate and reproduce) will need rotifers, a specialized tank. I am not convinced they have better color, but these do! So, here is my issue: If I get more H erectus, I want to get WC, which might expose my H reidi to pathogens which they are not exposed to. Should I chance it? My emotional side says yes, because I love the babies I have put so much work into over the last few years. They are my Christmas present! But, risking the others(who are so incredibly cute) seems really chumpy to me, risking them for my own desires.... |
Seahorse Whisperer
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"i was informed of some dolphin related testing going on up there" Too Funny! | |
 
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| Post #2 Sep 8 2008, 10:31:59 AM | Larry H |
Inbreeding not only breeds in the stuff you want but also the stuff you don't want. It does not work in Hilldale either. I would hate to think of the problems that those people have. Kings and Queens or royal families tried that as well and they had their fair share of problems. I think that is why we have laws against that kind of thing. My opinion is that breeds that are so closely related without influence eventually become another breed or type. I heard that 97% of what all dogs have in common are the same, so they can be bred and achieve something else. It is the other 3% that makes up their breed, size, color, length of leg, tail or ears and other things. I have not had any SW fish breed as of yet, so in no way am I a know it all. But I have been breeding all sorts of other things for years. When I used to breed canaries, I had a lot of red factor birds. My attempt was to try to get a deeper or darker red color not just the orange color. I did a lot of trading with other people to establish new breeding pairs or would have multiple breeding pairs and pair up their offspring. It was important to me to keep good records. I will do the same with my fish as they pair up. It would be great if more people bred the same type of fish so that we could trade babies to keep our lines stronger in the future. |
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| Post #3 Sep 8 2008, 01:20:49 PM | Amie |
A wonderful idea and very doable if we all work together. I really think that everyone that is breeding banggai's here in Utah need to trade once in a while. I think just about all the breeding pairs originally came from Mark P.'s breeding pair (which is now my pair...that just died.) I would be interested in knowing exactly how you kept good records. Do you use the computer? Spread sheet? magic marker? Suzy, I went over to the MOFIB site to see what kind of seahorses people were raising over there and posting about. I didn't get very far when I saw a couple of threads talking about the floating seahorse problem. No one over there seems to know what to do about it. They could certainly use your advice. Just go to this thread and check out the headings. |
stormy, stormy nights
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http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sandiego/technology/mammals/interns.html Tell them Adam sent you. | |
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| Post #4 Sep 8 2008, 05:17:07 PM | Crystal |
| like mention before continues inbreeding causes genetic difficulties. your best bet is trading or buying new brood stock to mix in constantly. |
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| Post #5 Sep 9 2008, 04:29:00 AM | Suzy |
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Guys, thank you so much for the input. But, now I am in a emotional bind here! Should I get more WC H erectus to breed with the few babies I have? That risks the H reidi I have (the pricey yellow and orange ones that are now very close to my heart) because supposedly that won't have immunities to wc pathogens. I don't want to get more CB H erectus. I have done that so many times and it hasn't worked! They are so inbred at this point. |
Seahorse Whisperer
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"i was informed of some dolphin related testing going on up there" Too Funny! | |
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| Post #6 Sep 9 2008, 07:06:52 AM | Shane |
| there is no way you could seperate the them so they h. reidi so there is no way they could get the pathogens? is there any treatment to iradicate the pathogens? |
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| Post #7 Sep 9 2008, 10:06:12 AM | Amie |
That's what I would like to know. It seems like there should be some treatment or a seperation time that would be sufficient to insure that they did not have any illness. It's like with fostering cats (I know, it's a stretch), I have to keep all new foster cats completely isolated from all other fosters for 10 days to insure that they don't shows signs of any diseases before allowing them to mingle. Can't you do the same with the fish? Or would the pathogens not show up, or only effect your fish and not display signs in the WC fish? Isn't there someway to inoculate your tankraised fish against the pathogens? FYI: I'm using 1) below for the term inoculate, not 3) which would be used to add phyto to a saltwater culture. in·oc·u·late –verb (used with object) 1. to implant (a disease agent or antigen) in a person, animal, or plant to produce a disease for study or to stimulate disease resistance. 2. to affect or treat (a person, animal, or plant) in this manner. 3. to introduce (microorganisms) into surroundings suited to their growth, as a culture medium. 4. to imbue (a person), as with ideas. For those who don't understand why I just posted the definition of inoculate, it's for Suzy's benefit - and anyone that was there when she was giving her phyto demonstration. Suzy kept using the work inoculate when she was talking about adding phyto to the saltwater container. I don't think anyone, including myself, had any idea what she was saying. She kept saying stuff like, "then just inoculate your phyto culture into the container", or something like that. Everyone in the room would look blank, wondering what the heck she was talking about. We finally figured out that she meant, just add the phyto to the saltwater in the container. Boy do I feel stupid. She asked me what I thought inoculate meant and I thought it meant to give a shot or give a disease to something. Way to go, Suzy. |
stormy, stormy nights
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http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sandiego/technology/mammals/interns.html Tell them Adam sent you. | |
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| Post #8 Sep 9 2008, 11:03:18 AM | Larry H |
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Amie- When I kept records it was before computers got so handy. I kept them in notebooks and updated them as events happened. Each pet had it's own sheet with facts such as color, type, date of birth or death, to whom they were bred and the outcome. There were many other things as well like band numbers and illnesses and such. If I were to do that sort of thing today I would use spread sheets and notebooks. Computers make it look nicer but you need to keep good records by what you are doing and be able to look at it as you check things out. Sometimes a pen or pencil is much handier. This would be much more difficult to do with fish. I tried it for a while when I first started getting fish and it was a problem. Too many unknowns to do it the way I used to do it. Breeding pairs might be easier to do, but when you have a bunch of the same kind of fish together it is hard to tell them apart and to catch them is even harder. |
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| Post #9 Sep 9 2008, 10:48:15 PM | Amie |
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I use pen and paper all the time. Sometimes, I just write on the side of tank with a marker, I've found it a lot easier to keep track of hatch dates that way. I guess when you bred birds, you would tag the bird somehow, right? |
stormy, stormy nights
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http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sandiego/technology/mammals/interns.html Tell them Adam sent you. | |
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| Post #10 Sep 10 2008, 11:10:39 AM | Larry H |
| I used metal leg bands with numbers. They had to be put on the chicks but sometimes the mother would try to take them off. |
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