crossed discus or pure strain

[Mattzilla]

what do you prefer??? pure strain discus or crossing strains?



my vote....i have no personal experience with breeding my own discus but some of the best discus i have ever seen are crossed discus.

matt

[DiscusMad]

I can't vote becaue I like both

[Mattzilla]

SO DO I....BUT....

which do you like better. think of the best looking discus you have ever seen and tell me if it is a pure strain or some wierd cross....

[DiscusMad]

thats still a very hard question for me to answer lol

[Mattzilla]

try your best....lol

i know how you feel. but most of your newest strains started with crosses and were then perfected of a number of years... food for thought

[kevkoi]

I'm going to complicate these matters.......

Well all modern day domesticated discus are pretty much created from crossed strains or mutations. A pure strain is only achieved after many years of back crossing and selective breeding to achieve a high percentage of replication of the parents.

That said, are fish like say the "Leopard spotted snakeskin" a "Strain"? or just a selection.

Only a percentage (and a rather lower percentage!) of the fry of LSS x LSS will show full spotting and actually quite a good number of fry will show more striation than dots and hence to me that makes it a Snakeskin.

LSS was supposedly created by crossing a red spotted green with a fineline snakeskin.... so they are technically a cross. However, if you mate a fineline snakeskin to a red spotted green for instance, the percentage of fry actually showing the LSS would be even lower than that of LSS x LSS.

HOWEVER, breeders have told me that in order to keep the spotting strong in the line of LSS, every few generations of sibling crosses, there needs to be an outcross to something like a RSG or Leopard with good spots. Continual breeding of sibling LSS to LSS will eventually create a weak line of fish with too many deformities (inbreeding depression). SO.... one must know when to outcross a line to strengthen it. However, outcrossing may then give an even lower percentage of good quality LSS fry so the breeder then has to work back towards getting good percentages of fry showing the LSS trait in the line....... a bit complicated.

Same with the San Merahs for instance..... They originated from a cross between a Red Alenquer and Ghost discus and then thru artificial selection, the line was stabilised to try and create a large percentage of the fry resembling the parents. (There will be occasional throwbacks....)

Crossing a Red Alenquer to a Ghost discus for instance will NOT give you a San Merah.... much work has to be put in to stabilise the line for them to then be called the San Merah......

Crosses are just mere crosses..... A strain is something that probably originated from a cross but then worked thru to try and create a high percentage of fry that will replicated the colours of the parents while at the same time to improve on the shape and minimise deformities.

.... Gets off the soap box (oh, no... milk crate.)

[kalebjarrod]

are we talking pure as in pure wild discus or pure aquarium breed discus

sicky topic. one came from the other

some of the best aqaurium strains are genteticly strengened by thier wild conterparts.

by retaining a varied area distinctive gene pool in nature we leave a sercure base to fall back on in times of breeding trouble.

by breeding many and varied beautiful fish we ignite the imaginations of the fish world and can bring some surport to thier wild brothers and sisters plight. (while retaining a beautiful hobby)

both are equally great in thier own right.

breeding for the sack of breeding is another story

[hogangtp]

i guess i like pure ones, because they will for the most part be looking the same. But some crosses are just ugly. i guess