C. Paleatus, Long fin ??? High fin ???

philtre · Post by **philtre** » 24 Apr 2003, 15:15

my humble two cents worth

long fin peppered cories. are they common, probably not. Are they man-made. I would think not. Are they freaks of nature? Probably so.

At the end of the day, I think it's Man doing the maths. Just look at discus. we only started with the heckel, the blue and the brown ... and nowadays, we have red disucs, we have white discus .... man-made? It depends on how you look at it. I would say NOT. Selective breeding? Yes. At the end of the day, all these variations are probably results of inbreeding or selective breeding. I would hardly call this man-made. As it was mentioned earlier in the thread .... if the conditions are not right, the fishes wouldn't breed. So how then do we arrive on a musical note discus? Or a white discus? Or the common pigeon blood that we see nowadays? 15 years ago, there was no such thing as the pigeon blood strain!!! Man-made, I would say not, but rather selective breeding.

But if you were to look at it, how man-made could all these species be in the first place? Nature ensures that age-old rule prevails. Survival of the fittest. What works, will survive, what doesn't will not make it. You could come up with a bright blue cory but if it's genetically unstable or unviable, you probably wouldn't be able to see more of the same even if you try your damnest to reproduce the same effect through inbreeding or selective breeding.

And if you were to look a little closer to home, who's to say that we're not helping to kill the world? Who's to say that we're not striping the Amazon of its treasures with all these wild imported cories? Who's to say, that a few years down the road, the cories which we see, which are now being readily imported from the South America, will no longer be available due to "over-farming"? What about the possibility of the destruction of their natural habitat in the process of collecting these wild cories?

Ok ... so if you maintain that they are "pure" and "true" strains, and not "man-made", then who can be sure we'll still be able to see these same species 10 - 20 years down the road?! Wouldnt it be a high possibility that we could lose all that through un-natural intervention of us? Man? Then where does that lead us then?

With everything there's the pros and inevitably, there'll be the cons. I suppose we just have to respect nature and tread carefully.

Let's not be too quick to say that oh there shouldnt be any "man-made" species. coz if we do ... then how are we supposed to justify all that destruction to mother nature just so that we can have a little piece of her in our tanks?

Post by **Coryman** » 24 Apr 2003, 18:18

philtre,

I think you along with others are totaly missing my point.

When I refer to Man Made I am talking of those people who are creating mutants, I won'e even call them species. Their methods are not natural in any way. e.i.

1) Manufactured hybrids. (Stripping the eggs from one species and fertalizing with sperm stripped from another species).

2) Hormone induced spawning

3) GM fishes 4) Dye injection. In my opinion the people that do this should have the dyes tatooed accross their forheads.
I INJECT FISH WITH DYE

Basically, If the fish will mate and produce naturally without the aid of artificial means and these fish can actually come together within their natural bounderies thats fine by me. I include here the practice of line breeding for both the preservation of a species and the personal preference for developing particular traits like shape, colour adn fins.(not manufacturing new ones)

For those that are still in favour of points 1,2,3 & 4, I would be interested to see what your ideal Catfish looks like.

Ian

Caol_ila · Post by **Caol_ila** » 24 Apr 2003, 18:59

Imho the uprise of the lollipop discus isnt uncontroversial as theres big discussions to why create these poor fellows without any chance of communicating with each other and the keeper. Inho these discus are made for people who dont care how their fish feel. If it cant change color i dont have to care if it feels bad. Prolly like a dog that cant bark.
I also read that they cant produce the larvae food and the offsrping has to be raised by other discus.

I mean i can live with veiltail version of fishes when they can still move...but compare a plakat betta to these superlong vt...its just taste but i like fish that can move like fish and not like plastic toys that house my girlfriends bubble light tube in the living room...

philtre · Post by **philtre** » 26 Apr 2003, 04:13

I, for one am not a supporter of injection of dye into fishies. I think it's a cruel pratice just to "spice" up the fish so as to make it more "attractive" when it's already beautiful as it is.

Hi Coryman,I haven't mistunderstood you, think neither of fellas did too. I suppose the "misunderstanding" came about when the long-fin peppered were being called mutant. If according to the "definitions" above, these little fellas would probably just be the result of selective breeding and not mutation/ deliberate attempts to atificially modify the sp.

There are lfs owners who refuses to take in dyed fish in this part of the world because they know these fellas wouldn't last long and that they'll just turn black and die one day. Not to mention, there are a lot of people who try to spread the word about boycotting dyed fish - as some say - in this part of the world.

Caol_ila?
lollipop discus as in dyed disucs? hmmm ... never seen that before around here. What we see here are selectively bred ones, haven't seen a dyed discus before. Do you see them in the lfs over your side? Care to share a pic so that we know what to aviod?

Cheers!

Caol_ila · Post by **Caol_ila** » 27 Apr 2003, 22:33

@philtre erm dyou actually know that selective breeding bases on mutation? Ever read anything about genetics?

zac08 · Post by **zac08** » 28 Apr 2003, 02:24

Caol_ila wrote:@philtre erm dyou actually know that selective breeding bases on mutation? Ever read anything about genetics?

If it's a mutation... was it natural occurance at first or did the humans purposely used uranium and plutoniums to make it a mutant freak??

Genetical enginnering?? Whose to say it's right or wrong?? Are we playing god?? I leave it up to you, but dun you think we humans have been doing it to ourselves over the years?? You can check for Down syndrome while the baby is still a foetus and choose to have it or not... you can choose which sex to have or not to have... is this selection??

I think we've already veered too far off the original line of discussion and we into a no-mans land on this topic... anyone can have their own idea of wat is considered pure-bred and pure genes... even Hitler was trying to keep his race pure by the purging of the so-called "Unpure races", so who is right and who is wrong?? If nature has made it and allows it to live and reproduce, it has a right to live on this earth, whether you like it or not... And even if man has created a frankenstein, it has the right to live too.... even though it may not be able to reproduce or live long...

Just my thoughts,

philtre · Post by **philtre** » 28 Apr 2003, 17:50

Caol_ila · Post by **Caol_ila** » 28 Apr 2003, 19:47

I know other countries are more interested in gm and have much more positive opinions on it. I think this is not a nomans land it is called ehtic discussion and without it we could pack our bags and wait to take the trip over the styxx for our species.

Maybe because i am a german and we have had these horrible happenings in the past, my opinion on selective breeding is different to yours. And if you say let everybody do what he wants then everybody will be happy is nonsense cauz everybody is touched by these developments.