It's an Abomination! (Okay, not really)

[aakaakaak]

So I'm messing around with AqAdvisor and I toss in mollies and swordtails. It gives me an "interbreeding" warning. I do a little googling and come across mollies and guppies interbreeding and the cross looking pretty sharp. So what I'd like to know is:

A: What livebearers can interbreed?
B: Is there anything genetically harmful in interbreeding?
C: Can the interbred fishies reproduce?
D: Does anybody have experience in doing this?
E: Which crossbreeds look best?
F: Am I making too long a list?
G: Did I just not google hard enough for extensive information to show up?

 

[Newman]

A: Molly+Guppy
Swordtail + Platy
B: if you repeatedly inbreed fish, especially to their closest relative, after a few generations you will see deformities, and an overall weaker fish. this depends on the fish too.
C: the live-bearer crosses can. idk about others but usually two different species will either produce sterile fish or no (surviving) offspring at all.
D: I breed platy and swordtail. tried to get a blue swordtail out of my crossing but it takes a really long time, so i may just take a shortcut and buy someone else's blue-colored swords and try to make the breed purer blue (getting red off swordtails is very hard and takes many generations)
E: it depends on what your breeding with what. the livebearer crosses can both look good if you're breeding and caring for them right.
F: no
G: in a way yes...lol but this is a specific enough question to ask around forums

 

[aakaakaak]

Thanks Newman! Question B was about interbreeding, not inbreeding. But, in answering the inverse, I guess legit breeding of completely different fish would be about as far from inbreeding as you could get.

If I ever make some gollies/muppies I'll make a note of it.

 

[bassbonediva]

Newman did kind of answer question B, though. Think of it this way...if you breed a labrador to a standard poodle, you get a "labradoodle" (or a labrador/poodle mix). If you breed two of your labradoodle puppies to each other, you're at once interbreeding and inbreeding your puppies. Same thing with your gollies/muppies. If you have one molly and one guppy and breed them together, they'll produce your gollies/muppies. Assuming your offspring AREN'T sterile and you breed two of them together, you are at once interbreeding and inbreeding. As Newman stated, this is potential damaging if you do it too much.

 

[Newman]

whoops, yes sorry i misread

 

[aakaakaak]

Yep, I understood that Paige. Thanks for reiterating it though.

After a little more research I have discovered that I'll need to do more research. The internet is full of wonderfully conflicting data. I did discover that some of the posters at monsterfishkeepers are jackholes, so there is that...

 

[prsturm]

Yep. The internet is here to guarantee you three different answers to any question you might have, all of them exactly contradictory. I've given up on the internet. All you have is your own experience.

 

[aakaakaak]

I found a thread on interbreeding where the guy who runs AqAdvisor popped in. He has no clue what can and can't interbreed either. From what I've seen the "best guess" is that platys/swordtails can crossbreed without problems, but while mollies/guppies can interbreed they are more likely to have problems and are "normally" sterile. It's not worth my effort to breed mutants.

Although, if I have a couple dozen tanks, mollies and guppies are supposed to be breedable with endlers or mosquitofish. That's way more multi-cross mutant breeding than I'm interested in.

 

[Newman]

lol yah those are pocelia