Joea said:
acrosstic said:
I don't think giving them to a fellow hobbyist would mean they would show up on the market
It's impossible for anyone to make this claim and it's naive for anyone to believe it. Fish can breed into the the hundreds and thousands over a lifetime and their offspring can do the same. Once you give even one away to a fellow hobbyist, you cannot guarantee that any offspring produced won't end up on the market.
LOL. Okay so I can't be 100% certain. However, even the people that think hybrids are all fine and good wouldn't be stupid enough to sell them to a pet store...even if they were that stupid...then another aquariust would have to buy the hybrids to put in his tank with endangered cichlids that would cause the dilution of the gene pool, which I doubt a cichlid keeper would do if he had those species. There are so many levels the system would have to break down in, that you can be sure that it is EXTREMELY RARE.
Add to that, if I gave them away, I'd inform them that these cichlids are not to be given to a LFS or pet store and that a person who wants hybrids are probably not people who are going to be trying to distribute cichlids, and even if they do would probably only be to people who want hybrids or people with few if any cichlids at risk or dissappearing in the hobby due to this. Example. do you really think an Electric Yellow is going to dissappear in the hobby or a red zebra?
The only reason hybrids are bad is if they happen to come into contact with species at risk of dissappearing in the hobby. It is up to us to make sure if we have one of those that we aren't breeding them with a hybrid, but otherwise what is the risk to the hobby? Is some small amount of genetic material from my electric blue going to eventually show up in electric yellows in the pet stores in like 20 years? Even if they do, isn't that nature? You don't think we have all the different species because they cross breed over a period of time?
Preserving endangered species is the goal, so if you are breeding them, it is up to you to make sure you don't buy from a place where you could get a hybrid of that species. My LFS doesn't take fish because of this. I have confidence in their fish for that reason. Are we supposed to make sure our LFS is responsible? **** yeah, but that is with where we spend our money.
Saying I have to kill my hybrids is stupid!
The better way to handle it, rather than say they can't get out is to say we have to handle them responsibly.
I'll make sure I don't give them to a pet store and intruct the new owners of them not to. That way the hybrids are responsibly handled without having to kill them, and we can be reasonsible enough not to allow fish store or breeders to get them. If each owner of a hybrid passes them on armed with knowledge that they are hybrids that shouldn't be breed with other fish, then that is enough to keep the hybrids for causing any harm in the hobby as long as we are responsible enough.
It is shady breeders and stores that cause the problems, but they will continue to do that regardless of what we do. We need to preserve the species at risk, that doesn't always have to mean killing hybrids. We need to create a system in which both can happen, because they both do happen. Not kill hybrids to keep them out of the hobby when they are going to get in regardkess if what we do. We should be responsible enough to let hybrids live, but make sure they don't get with our endangered species.
We've got mbuna, peacock, hap tanks, why not a hybrid tank where we can keep hybrids out of shady breeders tanks without killing them? They aren't all ugly and if you ever get a mbuna that is killing everything in your tank, you can just drop him into the hybrid tank and not worry about him killing so much. If the hybrids tempraments are bad as has been so suggested, then a nasty mbuna would fit in nicely in a hybrid tank.
Both sides of the argument are extreme. We need to pay attention to what we are doing with hybrids, but to suggest they aren't already out there is stupid and having to kill them for fear "they will get out" as if they aren't already is stupid.
We don't want them getting crossed with endangered species means keeping them out of the pet and fish stores. If you feel you have to kill them, fine, but I'd rather let them live in my tank or give them to another hobbyist that understands.
Setting up hybrid tanks is the best idea I've had. Why not? Getting hybrids as knowledgable hobbyist ensures they don't get into the LFS and into the gene pools of otehr species and they don't look half bad. Maybe you get lucky an a cross looks cool (Like my first batch).
Wow, that was long, but I just think both sides are a bit out of whack here.
I'll post some pics of my hybrids when I can.
