Re: Ailing krib and Krib genetics

[Mike & Diane Wise <apistowise@bewellnet.com>]

Simon,

My only experience (and not mine actually) with such selective breeding of Common
Kribs was over 20 years ago. Rick Haeffner (now curator of herps & fishes at the
Denver Zoo) selectively bred Common Kribs to increase the number of spots on the
male's caudal fin. He gave me one male that was a cull. It had 7 spots in two
rows! I have a slide of it somewhere. He had specimens with 12 spots in three
rows by the time he grew tired of the experiment.

As for albino Common Kribs, Dr. Langhammer discussed its genetics in a
Buntbarsche Bulletin back in the mid 80s. He explains why some produce normal
colored fry as well as albinos while others produce all albinos.

As for the female's breathing problems, I wonder if she might be infested with
gill parasites. All fish have them all of the time (sort of like the cold virus
in humans). If she was more stressed than the other fish in the tank, she might
have had a population explosion that are now clogging her gills. Try a commercial
parasite killer or use a formalin bath (2 drops / US gallon or 1 drop / 2 liters)
and see if this helps.

Mike Wise

Alicia and Simon Voorwinde wrote:

> Hi, This is my first post to the mailing list so I hope it ends up where it
> is meant to. I hope you don't mind me asking questions about krib instead of
> apistos.
>
> I have two queries; 1 a problem and the other a question on genetics.
>
> I have a pair of albino krib who have spawned recently. They appeared to be
> fine until Monday ( 27/3 ) and the female began to look ill. She began
> hiding and gasping very heavily. All the other fish seem fine, even
> outstanding. Tank inhabitants include sturisoma whiptail catfish,
> bristlenose, and otocinclus. Water conditions 1dKH, 7dGH, ammonia 0, nitrite
> 0, ph 6.5, temp a little high ( very hot days lately ) at 29 degrees celcius
> ( but I would have thought that would help boost the immune system ). Any
> ideas what may be ailing her ?
>
> The other thing is a group of people around Australia who visit my dwarf
> cichlid discussion forum are about to embark on a project called the Krib
> project. In this project we are going to try and undertake a breeding
> project to try and improve the vigour and colour of a bread and butter
> species like the kribensis ( our subject ). We would select krib pairs and
> breed them selecting the most colourful and hardy individuals to breed from,
> culling the rest and swapping the best of the spawn with the other breeders
> around the country ( frieght around Australia is cheap and quick ). At the
> moment we are gathering information about inheritance patterns in kribensis.
> The kind of things we are seeking is which features of krib are inheritable
> traits and which are environmentally influenced traits. Traits like vigour
>  I don't know whether anyone has noticed but male krib seem to die a lot
> just after spawning and are less vigourous than they were say 10 years
> ago ), number of ocelli on the tail and dorsal, and intensity of the red on
> the bellies of both males and females, the extent of the red on the belly of
> the female, the mothering instinct of female krib and the defensive nature
> of male krib, are examples of traits we'd like to improve but this is
> pointless if we don't know how these traits are inherited. Ultimately we'd
> like to tackle one of these traits at a time ( no point trying to improve
> all of them at once ) and then breed the improved strains and release them
> to pet stores around the country. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
>
> On a related matter - my albino krib pair have recently spawned as I said
> above and have produced about 50 fry, half of which seem to be albino and
> the other half seem to have the wild type phenotype. Since then I have found
> out that albinism in albino krib is a codominant gene. If wild type fry are
> produced does this mean they don't carry the albino gene at all
> ( homozygous ) or aren't my krib parents real albinos ( the male has black
> eye spots on his tail and dorsal, not colourless white ones ) ?
>
> Regards,
>
> Simon Voorwinde
>
> =========================================================
> svavev@hunterlink.net.au
> http://thecichlidtank.cjb.net
> =========================================================
>
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