Bulgarian Green Variations

[Mugwump]

The more I work with this gene the more puzzled I become...

Batch #3 are disappointingly slow growing, I've recently moved about 15 mostly paraibas to a seperate tank to try and grow them out, but I'm struggling to find many classic "bsp's" in the batch. I know previously I said...


However it's worth noting that most of those were some of the larger ones I took to the shop, and the colour only really emerged when they got there, the ones at home by comparison still look very washed out.
Conversely...

Batch #4 these seem to be growing much faster and are rapidly catching, up with batch #3. In this batch there seem to be a reasonable proportion of youngsters with the classic "bsp" darker fins, but most of these have much darker bodies than I would have expected, this does however confirm that the male is at least het. for bg.

Finally batch #2
Some of these, seem to be expressing surprisingly strong body pigment, these are all fish with a smokey gene.

I have been pretty busy of late and haven't had chance to take many photos, hopefully I'll get chance in the next few days.

However, what is becoming increasingly clear is that the expression of this gene seems to be extremely variable and is probably dependent on both environmental factors such as diet, temperature, lighting and water chemistry as well as the interaction of other genes, in particular, if you want to produce "classic" looking "bsp's", make sure you keep smokey genes out of the gene pool!

..now that's interesting....you were referencing veils/bg up above...and I think that wifi is influenced by the dark/smokey genes....I have a bsg with wifi....a dark gene, but no smokey....

[Pterophyllum]

I think that wifi is influenced by the dark/smokey genes

This is probably worthy of another thread, but personally I suspect that pearlscale may have an influence, it also seems to be associated with fish that have lemon shaped rather than round bodies, that said this female seems to have a pretty broad dorsal and none of the above applies

[Pterophyllum]

Back to the Bulgarian Greens.
I kept back about 15 from Batch #2 as potential breeders, most I selected were classic "BSP's" as both parents were homozygous for pb, all are pb/pb.
I also kept a couple of lighter ones and a few darker individuals, thinking that they were D/D, recently the colour of these has intensified and to be honest I'm now no longer sure that these are homozygous for bg :-

not the best photos I'm afraid, but the colour rendition is pretty accurate

Both fish below could be D/D - Sm/+ - pb/pb - bg/bg, but equally they may be D/+ or D/Gm and only het. for bg.




I'm confident this next one is bg/bg but depending on mood, it's smokey pattern can darken considerably.



I have however decided that for the moment I'm going to try to eliminate smokey from my Bulgarian Green breeding program, once I have a firm handle on how the gene expresses, I might reintroduce it, but at the moment it's one variable too many for me to cope with!

[Pterophyllum]

Now on to batch #3
I have also selected 14 fish from this batch to grow on as potential breeders, most of these are blushing. As I have limited tank space it helps to keep track of which fish are from which batch if I keep only blushers from one batch, only veiltails from another, etc. etc.

As both parents are homozygous for pb that means these are all Paraibas, and unfortunately I'm finding these extremely difficult to call.

Take this fish as an example


At a cursory glance you might easily take this fish for a sunset paraiba (g/g - S/S - pb/pb). However, as it's father is D/Gm and it's mother is almost certainly D/Gm (and if not Gm/+) it can't be!
Then, if you look very closely at the tips of the anal and dorsal fin you'll notice a tiny bit of black.

Here are a couple of very similar siblings



In these the faded black marks from the gold marble gene are more obvious as are the black tips to the fins.
My guess is that all three of these fish are Gm/Gm - S/S - pb/pb - bg/bg but could the darker fins of the last two indicate D/Gm?

At the other extreme
Like father like son(?)


I'm assuming this is a smokey pinoy ghost like dad, and only het. for bg if so he's D/Gm - S/+ - Sm/+ - pb/pb - +/bg
Up to now I've not bred any D/Gm pinoys, is this typical colour for such a fish? Or is the single bg gene exerting an influence on expression?

more phenotypes to follow....

[Pterophyllum]

This one is probably my favourite





Clearly a pinoy paraiba of some type but is it homozygous for bg? - only time will tell

What about this one?


Horrible lemon shaped body, the shadow of the smokey pattern is visible, but is it bg/bg?

[Pterophyllum]

Just a couple more

if both parents are D/Gm, Given the black tail band this can't be Gm/Gm and most have at least one Dark gene, but it doesn't look quite like any of Raiko's photos of blushing bg/bg that I recall seeing.



similarly this one



The smokey pattern is very apparent and it looks like a typical smokey paraiba, with no real indications of the presence of a dark gene, but if it is Gm/+ rather than D/Gm that presumably means the mother is Gm/+ not D/Gm in which case there should have been many more smokeys amongst it's siblings.

Lots of questions rather than answers, but it does point me in the direction of my next pairing, I need to test cross the female!

[Mugwump]

..nice work....they're looking really good...

[Pterophyllum]

in post #44 I said...

Lots of questions rather than answers, but it does point me in the direction of my next pairing, I need to test cross the female!

sometimes these things work out quicker than others. i paired the female with a veiltail paraiba koi


and fairly promptly they've produced a relatively small batch of 20 or so babies, they're still a bit small to be certain, but as far as I can see none appear to be black....



so on that basis the female is Gm/+ - S/+ - pb/pb - bg/bg

[Pterophyllum]

Going all the way back to 2017 and post #6 and batch #1, you may recall that I got just 1 veiltail Bulgarian green fish from 64 Bulgarian Green offspring in a mixed batch where both parents were het. for bg. This strongly suggested that the bg and veiltail genes are located on the same chromosome and fairly closely linked.
That one fish proved to be a female and I paired her to a blue albino male. I decided to pull the eggs and hatch them away from the parents as unfortunately I was due to go away for a week two days after the fry went free swimming. I reasoned that going without food for a week would do for the fry, and hungry parents might be tempted to snack on them, and I didn't want to encourage the parents down the path of cannibalism. Remarkably, when I returned, a few of the babies were still alive, and I was able to raise 6 survivors, 3 veiltails & 3 standard fin. As there were no dark fish & some of these obviously had gold marble genes, whilst other didn't, this proves that the mother is Gm/+ - V/+ - pb/pb - bg/bg.
Unfortunately for the 6 babies the poor circumstances of their first few weeks resulted in all having some degree of deformity, mostly damaged fins, but also shortened gill plates in at least one case.
Ordinarily I wouldn't breed from such fish, but in this case, as I'm sure the damage is environmental rather than genetic in origin I've made an exception and paired a female veiltail with a male bulgarian green from batch 2

So this is batch #5

Mother
Blue veiltail, het. for bg.


Notice the missing spines at the front of her dorsal fin, and the pinched tail.

Father
Bulgarian green, exact make up to be confirmed.


As you can see they're guarding a big clutch of wrigglers due to go free swimming in the next couple of days.
Hopefully, this will confirm the hypothesis that the bg and veiltail genes are linked, and as the female comes from a veiltail bulgarian green parent, I should see almost all veiltail homozygous Bulgarian Greens and almost all heterozygous standard fin offspring. The odd ones out will give a better indication of the crossover rate.

[Pterophyllum]