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View Full Version : Short gill plates always gentetic



LizStreithorst
07-28-2017, 06:02 PM
I very much need to know if poor water quality can cause short gill plates. I will cull the ones with the gill plates if y'all tell me that it's for sure a genetic thing. I spent a good bit on these fish. I wanted to use them as breeding stock. When they arrived from USPS I tanked the fish and saw that the best ones have short gill plates. I bought these fish to breed. Their genetics are so cool. I will only toss the best ones on the compost heap if you tell me that I should.

Pterophyllum
07-29-2017, 12:02 PM
Interesting question.
I have a largish batch from a pair that are both het. for albino, the non albinos were parent raised, but I kept a number of the albino offspring and raised them separately in a small tank. Few, if any, of the non albinos have short gill plates or deformed fins, whilst of about 25 albinos that I raised to culling size, many had poor fins and a high percentage of them had short gill plates. I've kept just 10, and 2 of these have short gill plates.
So it would seem that short gill plates can be caused by environmental factors*, but that doesn't prove that all short plates are the result of environmental factors.
The question you have to ask yourself is how much time & effort you're prepared to devote to a project only to discover that you've introduced a deleterious gene with the initial breeding stock?
Against that you've got to balance the rarity of the particular breeding stock you're starting with?

In my case, if I get what I want out of the 8 with good plates, I won't use the other two, but I have them as insurance, just in case.


*I'm ruling out a genetic issue linked to the albino gene, since I bred the albino grand parent and neither it nor it's siblings had short plates, and it's not shown up in any of the other batches from related fish. Also if it were a linked gene I'd expect to see some cross over and at least a small percentage of short plates in the non albinos.

Mugwump
07-29-2017, 04:20 PM
...also, imho....fish that have, or are close to, being over line bred can be weak in developing the basic angelfish characteristics ...fins, gill plates, etc....regardless...albinos being a bit deleterious, like blacks occasionally too kind of proves that....does it not?

"The question you have to ask yourself is how much time & effort you're prepared to devote to a project only to discover that you've introduced a deleterious gene with the initial breeding stock?
Against that you've got to balance the rarity of the particular breeding stock you're starting with?

In my case, if I get what I want out of the 8 with good plates, I won't use the other two, but I have them as insurance, just in case."