A few Platy questions

[GoofyGarra]

1. If I crossbreed fish sold as Variatus with my common Platies am I making a genetic hybrid of some sort, or is everything a hybrid anyway?

2. Does the high-fin gene tend to be dominant or recessive?

 

[Guppysnail]

@Odd Duck is who I consider the resident genetics expert.

[Odd Duck]

10 hours ago, Guppysnail said:

@Odd Duck is who I consider the resident genetics expert.

I’m definitely not an expert on variatus or platies in general, but I’ve read that many / most are already hybrids.  If you do have true, pure variatus I suspect they would be worth more as a pure strain than as a hybrid.  There definitely are many, many different variatus x maculatus hybrids out there.  If you managed to create a new and different, spectacular hybrid that then breeds true after multiple generations, then you might have something special on your hands.  But it would take several years to accomplish that with very careful selection over multiple generations of fish.  Possible, but not highly likely to happen for the average aquarist.  If not willing or able to carefully select for the specific desired traits, I would typically recommend you keep your strain pure if you think you actually have a pure strain to start with.  If you don’t trust your source then it likely doesn’t matter enough to worry about as long as you always tell people / buyers what they’re getting.

[GoofyGarra]

9 hours ago, Odd Duck said:

If you don’t trust your source then it likely doesn’t matter enough to worry about as long as you always tell people / buyers what they’re getting.

Yeah, this is what I figured. These just came from the LFS not a specialized breeder or anything, so I will just assume they are mutts anyway.