Missing ventral

I bought a lovely blue marble pearlscale -- prebreeder size -- at an auction Sunday, & discovered a missing ventral when I released it into the tank. I've been kicking myself ever since because I should have been watching more closely. I was planning on using this fish in my breeding program, but am not sure I want to perpetuate a glaring fault. I cull youngsters as soon as I see missing ventrals...any deformity, actually. I'm asking this question in the genetics section because I'd like to know if this is genetic & will it be passed on? If so, can anyone tell me what percentage of fish might have missing ventrals in a spawn?
Rats!! I didn't have to mortgage my firstborn child, but I still paid good money for this fish.

If the only concern is a missing ventral, you could breed them, especially if you didn't notice it missing when select it. Could have broken off with netting and transit. I know of some that have bred angels with 3 ventrals. It is an anomaly that doesn't seem to be affected by genetics; at least it doesn't seem to be passed to the offspring to my knowledge.

OK, thanks Dena. Now the next hurdle is to see if it's a female :0).
Sue S.

Hopefully it is Sue!

Hi,
Sorry to be so late with this response. I don't do much forum reading anymore. When pearlscale angels first appeared many of them had one ventral. They were quite common. I bred them for a number of years and eliminated the problem by simply selecting against it. We seldom if ever see them anymore. I have no proof of the genetic link but I would never use one in a breeding program.

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Originally Posted by eagleshadow

I bought a lovely blue marble pearlscale -- prebreeder size -- at an auction Sunday, & discovered a missing ventral when I released it into the tank. I've been kicking myself ever since because I should have been watching more closely. I was planning on using this fish in my breeding program, but am not sure I want to perpetuate a glaring fault. I cull youngsters as soon as I see missing ventrals...any deformity, actually. I'm asking this question in the genetics section because I'd like to know if this is genetic & will it be passed on? If so, can anyone tell me what percentage of fish might have missing ventrals in a spawn?
Rats!! I didn't have to mortgage my firstborn child, but I still paid good money for this fish.

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It;'s possible but not necessarily the case. The only way to find out is to breed them and observe what gets produced. But like Dave wrote, even if it is, it isn't the end of the world. All you have to do is avoid individuals that express the trait within the spawn once they're old enough to express it. Assuming the trait has non-recessive characteristics - it will show up in the first generation if 1 parent has the trait. If it has recessive characteristics, and only 1 parent has it in single dose (and therefore unexpressed), it will not show up in the 1st generation. However, it will show up in the next generation if you did a sibling pairing and both happen to carry the mutation in single dose. Again, just because your fish has a deformity doesn't mean it's inheritable and even if it is, you can select against it.