I thought I might have missed something in the translation. But I do
know many livebearer keepers that believe in crossing. I guess I'm
trying to reduce the acceptability of this practice with all wild type
fish. The ability to collect new wild stock is only decreasing.
>Additionally, we may not even select among strains except if the fish show
>damages or are aberrant in another way. E.g. there has been a "Red Boesemani"
>strain in the hobby here in Europe, as well as a "Yellow" one. There weren't
>crosses or hybrids, these were fish selected for colour and thus domesticated.
>These fish must not be used for species conservation.
>On the other hand, Cary, it's not in our hands to ban hybrids from the market.
>As long as we succeed in avoiding to sell crosses under scientific names we have
>already done a lot. To come to another discussion point from the list, as useful
>a list of common names may be for the one or other, we have already a perfect
>system with the scientific names. You have to look over the plates border in
>this case. You may think that Pygmy Rainbowfish is an accepted name for
>M. pygmaeus. It isn't by far! It may be well accepted among English speaking
>people, but what about the Dutch, the French, the Germans, Russians and
>last but not least Chinese? M. pygmaeus is the worldwide accepted and usable
>name, and any efforts to create common list names stop at your language
>border.
I'm in total agreement here. Sports are common in the commercial end
of the hobby. The commercial end also needs to do everything it can to
sell fish. If this requires crossing or developing sports then they
will do it. After all they do have families to feed. The commercial
end sells to a public that will have a tank for an average of about 6
months before it is stored away in a closet. This commercial end needs
to put fancy names that attract the pet shop buyers. The name Dwarf
Neon Rainbow attracts considerably more attention than Melanotaenia
praecox. Only through education of the fish keeping public as a whole
can we reduce this trend, and create a demand for pure identified
rainbows.
>But back to crosses. Many of you (and I myself too) buy fish only from breeders
>we know as reliable. Nearly all of them are members of ANGFA, RSG or IRG.
>As more the hobby spreads, as more members we get. And they are really
>running into IRG at least. That is the way - we have to keep our species
>clean and if we sell fish everybody can be sure it are pure species or varieties!
>I do not say we must have hybrids or crosses (Julie, these are synonyms!! :-))
>But if there are hybrids, let them be clearly stated as such to avoid crosses
>with pure species. History showed that we are responsible for the purity of
>strains and Cary, I really appreciate your SMP . If one breeds the fish for
>him alone and keeps them pure and distributes poor species, okay. But I think
>it's better to have an overview which species are rare in the hobby and which
>are often bred and kept. We have the fact that many of the species we are
>breeding come from a small genetic base. And if an exchange of specimens
>is only done by chance because we don't know who else has this species, we
>make the base even smaller and reduce the genetic base even more.
>I have met many people (not in the rainbowfish hobby :-) yet) who said "I brought
>this fish to the aquarist's community, I have bred and spread it and then stopped
>breeding it. And when I wanted to have it again I found that all had lost the
>species." Breeding fish isn't just bring the fish in, breed it, spread it and then
>forget it. If we don't care for it even if it has lost it's newby character we will loose
>many of our species (most of all those from New Guinea) within a few years.
>Everybody should clearly see this development. And the only way to avoid this
>(and also IRG has to do a lot in this matter) is to make a list of fish (and everybody
>should contribute on a voluntary base because he is convinced that it helps)
>kept in the societies and to have a coordinator which overviews the species
>and variety mix and who can say "breed this species or it will maybe be
>extinct in the hobby".
I really look forward to the day when each continent has it's own SMP
up and running. It wouldn't take much to compare notes on the status
of the rarer species should this be the case. With the present news
coming from New Guinea, I feel this is taking on a higher importance.
On related note, what is the status of S. vermeilipinnis in the hobby
today? If those few keepers of this species around the world had been
in closer contact, it may have stood a better chance in the hobby. We
may have noticed the fertility problems quicker and had a bit more
time to find a solution. We still have too many species in the gray
area of our knowledge. Are they doing well, or are they slowly
disappearing? If we're loosing a species in North America, it would
not be as large a problem if it is plentiful in Europe or Australia.
>And it is also important to have breeder who are willing
>to breed also species many people aren't interested in. And last but not least
>we have need for many keepers who buy the fishes these people breed because
>they can't sell them to our members ("oh sorry, I've had that already" ;-) we hear).
>Roy, you're surely doing a great job. But it would at least be an advantage if you
>would send an actual species list to Cary. And Cary, you have already seen, that
>our breeding would be worthless if we hadn't lots of keepers willing to buy all
>the fish we breed or we would "stew in our own juice".
The more rainbow fans, the more success we will have keeping all the
species/varieties going. The more fans there are, the more breeders we
will have providing these fish for everyone with an interest. I know I
do tend to concentrate on recruiting more breeders, but this is to
achieve the end result of more rainbows for all that wish them. But if
there were only 100 rainbow keepers in the US, I would encourage them
all to breed what they have, even with no salable market. At present,
I really don't believe a market is lacking. This market gets larger
each time one Rainbow keeper shows his or her fish to another
aquarist. So show your fish off to all you can, and breed your fish if
and whenever you can. It all does good in the long run. If you find
yourself with the ability to provide even so much as a single mop of
eggs to another aquarist, please do so.
Cary Hostrawser
My Rainbowfish Home Page
http://pw2.netcom.com/~caryho/home.html
Rainbowfish Study Group Web Page
http://home.stlnet.com/~gwlange/rainbowfish.index.html