RE: spawning?

["Ed Pon" <edpon@hotmail.com>]

Travis wrote:
In my view there are many good reasons why we should avoid removing fry from
>the parents. In the long term it is not just the parenting behaviour which
>we may lose (I think it is inevitable that if the selection pressure for
>effective parenting is removed, over a relatively small number of
>generations we will observe poorer parents).

I doubt if we will change the parental behavior much in a few generations 
unless we actively strive to select for poor parenting behavior.  There is 
one good reason for pulling eggs.  suppose you had the only pair available 
of a rare apisto and didn't want to lose the strain.  The original habitat 
has been destroyed and your chances of finding anything from this strain is 
next to none.

Keeping fish with the parents has some great benefits to the aquarist, as 
you described.  I get great enjoyment from watching parents take care of 
their young and go through the breeding cycle.  However, at times, I've had 
fish that were difficult to get, and I wanted to make sure they were spread 
around to local hobbyist, and I've pulled spawns.  Fish that are easily bred 
are generally cheap, and the practice of pulling eggs is not going to make 
anyone rich.

I tend to avoid very rare fish these days because of I could not put in the 
resources to take care of them properly.  But if I chose to keep really rare 
fish, then I would consider it my responsibility to produce as many as 
possible to spread them around in the hobby as well as (hopefully) decrease 
the demands for the wild-caught fish.

I don't know how many of you still remember how rare apistogrammas were in 
the hobby just ten years ago.


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