Julidochromis ornatus: inbred?

first of all, perhaps I'm going to try and keep a couple of these fish in
a 50l tank (I'm doing things metric, just to be clear ), if you think
that's a bad idea, please say so.

but there's a thing I wonder about: inbreeding. I've got a book by Pierre
Brichard about the cichlids in Lake Tanganyika (german edition, "Das
grosse Buch der Tanganyikacichliden, 1992), and it outlined the history of
the species in aquaria. it seems that at that time ('92), the species
suffered from inbreeding because they were all descendants of very few
specimens caught in the fifties and that at that time, importing had just
started again.

the thing I wonder about is this: how is the situation now, are there now
better specimens available? I don't necessarily need wild caught fish, but
I'd hate to have fish that are degenerated due to human intervention, as
the book was written in '92, I wondered whether the situation has changed,
for fish in general and J. ornatus in particular.

I have 7 ornatus and they r great curious and I see no problems in them at
all good luck


"Tjaard de Vries" wrote in message
news
first of all, perhaps I'm going to try and keep a couple of these fish in
a 50l tank (I'm doing things metric, just to be clear ), if you think
that's a bad idea, please say so.

but there's a thing I wonder about: inbreeding. I've got a book by Pierre
Brichard about the cichlids in Lake Tanganyika (german edition, "Das
grosse Buch der Tanganyikacichliden, 1992), and it outlined the history of
the species in aquaria. it seems that at that time ('92), the species
suffered from inbreeding because they were all descendants of very few
specimens caught in the fifties and that at that time, importing had just
started again.

the thing I wonder about is this: how is the situation now, are there now
better specimens available? I don't necessarily need wild caught fish, but
I'd hate to have fish that are degenerated due to human intervention, as
the book was written in '92, I wondered whether the situation has changed,
for fish in general and J. ornatus in particular.

On Mon, 08 Mar 2004 22:33:23 +0100, Tjaard de Vries
wrote:




the thing I wonder about is this: how is the situation now, are there now
better specimens available? I don't necessarily need wild caught fish, but
I'd hate to have fish that are degenerated due to human intervention, as
the book was written in '92, I wondered whether the situation has changed,
for fish in general and J. ornatus in particular.

I bought five wild J.ornatus in the mid seventies but have not seen
any since. A few of the other Julidochromis have been imported but
ornatus seem to be very rare.


Steve
--
EasyNN-plus. The easy way to build neural networks.
Build networks from numeric, text and image files.
http://www.easynn.com

Recently, in the past ten years, the exporting from Lake Tanganyika has picked
up significantly. Many fish that were hard to obtain in '92 are readily
available today. Amazing with the airport being a 16 hour ride from the Lake.
Within the past couple years, many small collectors are popping up around the
lake where in the past most of the collecting was done by a few select groups.
Things that'll remain rare and expensive are those fish that take a long time to
collect. (Frontosa, B. tricotti and other deep water fish), fish that are
sensitive and difficult to ship (Most of the featherfins) and fish that have
been collected to near extinction such as the Ophthalmotilapia boops "neon
streak" from Nkondwe and certain Tropheus species like the T. moorii found at
Ilangi.
AC

Tjaard de Vries wrote:
the thing I wonder about is this: how is the situation now, are there now
better specimens available? I don't necessarily need wild caught fish, but
I'd hate to have fish that are degenerated due to human intervention, as
the book was written in '92, I wondered whether the situation has changed,
for fish in general and J. ornatus in particular.

Well, just checked a few online Tanganyikan dealers I know of and Armke's
has F1 J. ornatus for sale. There's also the albino ornatus at a couple of
places. You might be able to find more if you search around a little.

"Cichlidiot" wrote in message
...
Tjaard de Vries wrote:
the thing I wonder about is this: how is the situation now, are there
now
better specimens available? I don't necessarily need wild caught fish,
but
I'd hate to have fish that are degenerated due to human intervention, as
the book was written in '92, I wondered whether the situation has
changed,
for fish in general and J. ornatus in particular.

Well, just checked a few online Tanganyikan dealers I know of and Armke's
has F1 J. ornatus for sale. There's also the albino ornatus at a couple of
places. You might be able to find more if you search around a little.

Try AquaBid.. There might be some there for sale.. I see the F1 denotation
once in a while there on some of the fish.. Good Luck...

Tim...

On Mon, 08 Mar 2004 23:31:10 +0000, Amateur wrote:

Within the past couple years, many small collectors are popping up around the
lake where in the past most of the collecting was done by a few select
groups.

hmm, I hope that these collectors know what they're doing... I'd hate to
see the fish in the lake getting jeopardized because of some greedy thugs
who like to make money with expensive fish ...

On Mon, 08 Mar 2004 23:22:24 +0000, steve wrote:

I bought five wild J.ornatus in the mid seventies but have not seen
any since. A few of the other Julidochromis have been imported but
ornatus seem to be very rare.

hm, are you from the UK? (judging from the time zone). I'll do some
investigation concerning ornatus in shops, regani or marlieri are not done
in this tiny tank, but transcriptus or dickfeldi perhaps...?

anyways, I'll try to get some fine ornatus, the book I mentioned earlier
said that inbred specimens are recognizable by the fact their bands aren't
smooth bands anymore.

On Tue, 09 Mar 2004 00:31:01 +0000, Cichlidiot wrote:

Well, just checked a few online Tanganyikan dealers I know of and Armke's
has F1 J. ornatus for sale. There's also the albino ornatus at a couple of
places. You might be able to find more if you search around a little.

online dealers :S ?

hm, I live in the Netherlands, there are some nice shops around here, but
this F1 thing:

I remember something about genetics in biology class, is the F1 from: P:
parentes (wild caught in this case), F1: filii 1 (the first generation
descendants of P)?
I'm always afraid that the fish in a store of a species in a tank are all
siblings... .

"Tjaard de Vries" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 08 Mar 2004 23:31:10 +0000, Amateur wrote:

Within the past couple years, many small collectors are popping up
around the
lake where in the past most of the collecting was done by a few select
groups.

hmm, I hope that these collectors know what they're doing... I'd hate to
see the fish in the lake getting jeopardized because of some greedy thugs
who like to make money with expensive fish ...


Any collector around the lake won't compete with the quantity the 1000's of
locals catch for food!