Re: spawning?

[RDotta7777@aol.com]

Hi everyone,

I am not replying to anyone's post in particular.  I have been lurking out 
here and thoroughly enjoying this thread.  These are the kinds of topics and 
the type of discussion that makes the hobby fun.  I don't have the experience 
that most of you have, so I will try to stay only in the realm that I might 
be able to defend.  

As a scientist (Microbiology -  I know, what the heck do do you do with that- 
you get a real job and then raise fish as a hobby), I am very much against 
pulling the fry from the parents.  I don't have a good reason....well, I 
thought I had a good reason, but many of you have sort of ruined it for me:  
I also felt that the Ram's poor parenting could be caused by so many 
generations of pulling fry.  But I guess that it could be caused by a number 
of unrelated things; not the least is the way they are raised in the Far East 
(in antibiotics).  Once they get here, they are not able to fend for 
themselves let alone their young.

Then I felt that the imprinting mechanism might get screwed up, but Bob Dixon 
and Big John and others make a great case for the lack of importance for that 
concept.  Then Mike Jacobs made a wonderful point that we really don't know 
what they like in the wild and only guess that what we see in the aquarium is 
mimicing what they are living in the real world.......did I get everyone's 
viewpoint correct?

Wow!  I am really now very confused.  How about this question:  who says 
their is "a" gene that controls the parenting function at all?  If it were 
necessary for a fish to have a gene "turned on" in order to become a good 
parent, then it would need to be turned on every time.  That means that no 
good parents could be had with pulled eggs.  We know that that isn't true, 
because we do get many good parents with eggs being pulled and the trait 
lasts for many generations. 

What if their are a series of genes?  like eye color.  What if being a good 
parent was dominant and bad parening was the recessive.  Then we could get a 
great parent, a good parent, a so-so parent, and terrible parent in the same 
brood.  But if we pulled the eggs, then someone might get the good egg and 
someone might get the bad.  But down the line, the dominants could again rise 
up and take over.

What turns the gene on?  Maybe it is so important to the survival of the 
species, that it doesn't require a turning on.  Most genes don't need to be 
turned on by a "behavioural" (English spelling version- makes what you say 
more important, don't you think?) imprinting type of experience.

I guess that my whole outlook on this topic has been turned around.  No, I 
still won't pull eggs (even from my discus pair that have now eaten 20 spawns 
in a row - after the fry swim free, yet); it just isn't natural to me.  
However, would I pull eggs if that meant survival of a species for me - you 
bet.  Do I criticize others that do? No!  

Any thoughts on the above will be welcomed.  I'm just enjoying the real 
biology of the discussion.

Thanks.

Rich D'Ottavio



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