Yeah. See, I developed the want to work with genetic husbandry years ago. I tried hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, mice, rats, etc. Then you have to feed the culls off, so I got into snakes, lizards, etc. All are beautiful animals, and easy to breed- but man do their cages stink if you even miss one cleaning. plus substrate all over, Constant replacement of things chewed through, etc.
Then I tried keeping some shrimp. And I realized, I can keep several hundred in one place, if I miss a water change the room doesn't smell, water if spilled is not wood shavings all over, and better yet- many breeders just breed what already exists in large tanks. No attempt to even improve.
So I got into buying some so-so strains of neos and attempting to make them the best I could. Very quickly I found out there is very little information on shrimp genetics, and lord knows I'm not teh best at figuring out these things- so I started doing selective breeding using the bell curve. How can I make this color better? Can I make it more solid? Can I make it into a pattern?- and then later- I wonder if I take this cool looking cull and breed it out, if I can make it into its own strain. heh
I'm no geneticist, heck, I'm not even smart. I just use my creativity to have fun with selective breeding.
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I *have* thought about doing some fish though Louie. In fact, I went so far as to get some different kinds: I have Platinum White Albino Guppies (Man did I pay an arm and a leg for those), CPD, Least Killis, Gold Least Killis, and Orange Line Guppies.
I know NOTHING about fish, which is why I enjoy reading the occasional fish threads here. When I received my White Guppies, I put the in remin RO and they did well. Then everyone on a forum told me that was wrong and put them in recon tap- so I did. Then I began having problems with fin rot. Lost two and use melafix to heal the other. I've now gone back to RO again, but they are hard to breed for me. Doesn't help that the fems are fry eaters...
My Leasts were breeding great, then not so great. They kept throwing a majority of males, so I dropped the temp from 80 to 70's. I see almost no babies now. I thought maybe the moss provide better hiding space for privacy for breeding. All it's done is make it so I don't see my fish now. Ugh.
My Gold Leasts don't seem to be breeding much either. *sigh*
I've had the occasional fry with the CPD. But I only see maybe 1 a month or so. Maybe they are eating them?
I LOVE my orange lines. But not many offspring from them either.
Any advice from fish keeper is appreciated. I'd absolutely LOVE to get into selective fish breeding too. But I guess for me the fish would have to be prolific, easy to breed, and be able to be kept in contained paces without going after each other.