How to strenghten and stabilise a genetic line?

[Lennie]

So, I have been breeding my black rams for some time and I had a chance to make some observations

Both parents are black, just like the pic given below. So far all babies are either blacks or golds, golds have a higher percentage.

Golds tend to be hardier, and generally grows faster, have better survival rate.

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I would like to continue breeding my own line in the future from my good looking healthy offsprings. However, I would like to focus on making the black babies stronger and equalise their growing to golds if possible. Also would appreciate having more and more black babies like their parents.

So, my questions are;

🐟How does fish genetics work in this regard? Is selectively breeding the best looking healthy fish is the way to strengthen your future lines and having that color pop up more in the future? Like should I constantly raise and breed black babies from every future generation, like first F1, then F2, then F3...? How can one stabilise a color line better? 

🦈At what point in breeding of same generation may constitute a problem? At what point adding a new blood is necessary, if it is?

 

🐡Like I can ask the same for my long fin super red bristlenoses. The babies are all red but around %65 longfin and %35 normal fin type. They don't seem to have issues of survival rate and growing in comparison of both fin types unlike rams' color in my experience. Also the fin quality differs between long fins too.  How can one can make the offspring look ideally what they want, and least in a much higher ratio, without any potential harm to quality of life like extreme inbreeding and stuff?

 

[Fish Folk]

That Ram looks amazing! Wow.

I’ll relate a strange story to begin this response…

About 6 years ago, I was attending my son’s soccer practice. He was too young to leave there alone, so I would try to bring some work along. I got distracted, though, by this guy who would be training dog owners by the side of the field. Every practice, people showed up with hyper, out-of-control dogs, and within minutes, this guy had the dogs totally obedient and calm, obeying his commands. It was crazy. Then, he would teach the owners everything they were doing wrong, and send them on their way home with instructions. I talked with him one day, and learned that he had studied animal psychology, and trained dogs for police and military over many years. The reason I am remembering this just now is that he told me that early on in his career, he lived with his uncle in Germany who bred Alsatians. His uncle told him that the old breeders used to breed every 3rd generation to a wolf in order to maintain desired traits.

Fact or fiction… I do not know. But that might be a decent rule of thumb for crossing in a new line. Maybe breed your F2s or F3s to a different Black Ram line. If you can find another Black Ram breeder, you could be doing each other a favor by exchanging the best from each line to build in stronger genetic diversity.

Livebearers can go 7-8 generations inbred before deformities consistently show up.

The situation is complex with Rams though their traits are different… weak genetics show up earlier.

We tried breeding an Opal Ram. We got an interesting couple of possibilities, but the line was weak…

 

Edited December 23, 2023 by Fish Folk

[Lennie]

On 12/23/2023 at 6:25 AM, Fish Folk said:

That Ram looks amazing! Wow.

I’ll relate a strange story to begin this response…

About 6 years ago, I was attending my son’s soccer practice. He was too young to leave there alone, so I would try to bring some work along. I got distracted, though, by this guy who would be training dog owners by the side of the field. Every practice, people showed up with hyper, out-of-control dogs, and within minutes, this guy had the dogs totally obedient and calm, obeying his commands. It was crazy. Then, he would teach the owners everything they were doing wrong, and send them on their way home with instructions. I talked with him one day, and learned that he had studied animal psychology, and trained dogs for police and military over many years. The reason I am remembering this just now is that he told me that early on in his career, he lived with his uncle in Germany who bred Alsatians. His uncle told him that the old breeders used to breed every 3rd generation to a wolf in order to maintain desired traits.

Fact or fiction… I do not know. But that might be a decent rule of thumb for crossing in a new line. Maybe breed your F2s or F3s to a different Black Ram line. If you can find another Black Ram breeder, you could be doing each other a favor by exchanging the best fro, each line to build in stronger genetic diversity.

Livebearers can go 7-8 generations inbred before deformities consistently show up.

The situation is complex with Rams though their traits are different… weak genetics show up earlier.

We tried breeding an Opal Ram. We got an interesting couple of possibilities, but the line was weak…

 

Interesting story. Thanks for sharing and for your help, as always 🤗

 

I found the ram image online, but mine look very similar if not the same. When I got them from my LFS they didnt look anything like that, they were just dark colored. The thing is, for me, even adults reaching their full size and full coloration took a while for the blacks even tho when they started breeding  earlier than reaching the full size. 

Did you rehome the one in the video or saved it to yourself? Maybe some colors need much longer time than normals or more stable lines do

 

The problem is when we get some fish, we dont even know at what generation they are.. And it is likely we purchase siblings already, am I right?

Edited December 23, 2023 by Lennie

[Fish Folk]

On 12/23/2023 at 9:27 AM, Lennie said:

Did you rehome the one in the video or saved it to yourself? Maybe some colors need much longer time than normals or more stable lines do

 

The problem is when we get some fish, we dont even know at what generation they are.. And it is likely we purchase siblings already, am I right?

I hoped to cross her with a sibling who was turquoise, but he passed away before maturity, and she died before I could spawn her. I think that the line was weak, and traits were recessive. I got there by crossing a Gold female with an electric blue male. Their fry were all muted gold and pale blue, but once they spawned, the results were fantastic. Some desired traits skip generations. As a rule of thumb, I like to think that fish often look more like their grandparents than their parents.

You are right . . . it is difficult to know exactly where you're starting with fish. Even if you keep careful records, it can be difficult to know where you began unless you go back to F0s in the wild. For this reason, it is more satisfying, as a breeder, to work with US Native fish, where it is relatively easy to catch them from the wild and build a healthy line. I like cold water species more recently, because they are easier to keep. Here are some wild caught (F0) Notropis chrosomus from Red / Lime Hills region of Alabama that I hope to breed this year. I also have a hobbyist bred line that I could cross them into as well...

[Lennie]

On 12/23/2023 at 5:36 PM, Fish Folk said:

I hoped to cross her with a sibling who was turquoise, but he passed away before maturity, and she died before I could spawn her. I think that the line was weak, and traits were recessive. I got there by crossing a Gold female with an electric blue male. Their fry were all muted gold and pale blue, but once they spawned, the results were fantastic. Some desired traits skip generations. As a rule of thumb, I like to think that fish often look more like their grandparents than their parents.

You are right . . . it is difficult to know exactly where you're starting with fish. Even if you keep careful records, it can be difficult to know where you began unless you go back to F0s in the wild. For this reason, it is more satisfying, as a breeder, to work with US Native fish, where it is relatively easy to catch them from the wild and build a healthy line. I like cold water species more recently, because they are easier to keep. Here are some wild caught (F0) Notropis chrosomus from Red / Lime Hills region of Alabama that I hope to breed this year. I also have a hobbyist bred line that I could cross them into as well...

They are very pretty. I wanna keep them one day too but city is very hot especially during summer time. My bedroom tanks go above 30Cs easily but fish room stays cooler (as it is in the basement) but still way too hot for cool water species.