"-ED" wrote in message
news On Fri, 02 Jun 2006 22:07:41 -0500, Glassman wrote:


"-ED" wrote in message
news What has science come up with today that allows tropical fish to exceed
their normal size?


Don't know what you're looking for but I can tell you about Guppies.
They
started using steroids in the 60's to produce bigger, flashier, faster
growing, and more colorful fish. At some point I stopped seeing those
fish
when the Asian market flooded the stores with nice and cheap product. The
problem was that they were treating these fish with anti-biotics to avoid
losing stock before shipping. When you got them home they often died
within
a week. Todays guppy strains are so weak it's alarming. Go into your LFS
and
look at the guppy tanks early in the morning before they clean them out
and
you'll see as many as 1/2 floating. When I was breeding guppies, they
were
so hardy, you had to constantly cull them, or you were overcrowed in a
matter of months. Now you're hard pressed to keep them alive at all. Is
it
because of the steroids, or the anti-biotics? I don't know.


Another shining example of capitalism. I didn't know the research went
that far back (the exposure and morphing for market', that is).
That's a shame.


XXXXX Actually there are many reasons why guppys are weaker today.
Many are pedigree animals, bred in perfect water with excellent food and
backed up with UVS systems.
Now customers who seek a tough strain can get it but a fancy guppy can be as
tricky as a fancy discus.
All I can say is mix in a bit of sea water, feed bloodworm, spirulina flake,
live mozzie larvae/brine shrimp/protien pellets in a pepper grinder and
beware the many gill flukes out there today.
I don't keep guppys with snails where I can avoid it.
I find salt water dips very handy.
You have to be careful there are thousands of guppy diseases.
I think it's because people put guppys outside where they get exposed to
local fish diseases and then they are sold back into the trade.
The most important part of guppy breeding these days is a good microscope.
They may not be simple as they were but they are still pretty easy.
But then I'm a mollie/platy man myself and they got their own
problems....... hybrids and da like.

Yea sometimes you lose them but hey the scale I can breed on gives me an OK
loss ratio.
LOL
play da numbers hey, not 1 or 2 but 20 @ a time! then cull! cull! cull!
before long you have the strain ya wanna develope further or stabilise.
Most reds are very tough and can be used to toughen lines, just a shame they
are so dominant genetically.