dumb question

[Knereim]

Is there such a thing as inbreeding fish? My marble Molly had babies a month ago and out of the 6 fry one is male could I keep it to breed or is that wrong like in mammals

 

[absolutangel04]

Yes, fish will inbreed. Livebearers in particular are usually ok with a bit of inbreeding, but if you do it much you will often see fewer fry survive to adulthood AFAIK.

 

[Knereim]

Yeah nevermind than ill donate them all

 

[Andy Sager]

No such thing as a dumb question

Is there such a thing as inbreeding fish? My marble Molly had babies a month ago and out of the 6 fry one is male could I keep it to breed or is that wrong like in mammals

Yes, most any animal can be inbred but too much inbreeding is what causes genetic faults. It's been happening with a lot of the fish available in the pet trade today.
What you need to realize is that a good percentage of the fish colors available in a pet store, are not found in the wild. This is the result of selective inbreeding to "lock in" a particular gene. What happens if too much inbreeding is done, the fish produce non-viable babies OR the offspring revert back to their natural wild colors.
So to answer your question, yes, you could keep it to breed but you don't want too many generations of this same bloodline to breed with each other.

Also, it works exactly the same way with mammals. It's how, for example, all the different Dog and Cat breeds came to be.

Keep asking questions

 

[Knereim]

Okay thank you for the info. I have never baught fish online is that a better way to get a better "gene" of fish if so what's a good online fish store?

 

[skywhitney]

Okay thank you for the info. I have never baught fish online is that a better way to get a better "gene" of fish if so what's a good online fish store?

I don't think you'll necessarily get a better genetic makeup in fish you get online, but ordering online can be a very good way of mixing up the different genetic lines and offsetting the inbreeding in your tank

I'm not sure about the online stores cause i buy from members here and other hobbiests

 

[jetajockey]

Your best bet is finding a breeder, many online stores are (usually) not much different than local retailers in that they order from a fish farm, they just tend to have a better selection.

I wouldn't worry too much about the fish being too inbred and all that, though, it's only a common issue in a few strains.

 

[Knereim]

Oh OK good info. What are the steps to buying off a forum?

 

[skywhitney]

browse the classified section and see if anything catches your eye or post a want to buy add

 

[Andy Sager]

Okay thank you for the info. I have never baught fish online is that a better way to get a better "gene" of fish if so what's a good online fish store?

To further expand on my comment, where you get the fish from only has a small part in what I was telling you. Inbreeding is a common practice by breeders to maintain a certain bloodline or characteristic. It isn't until about the 5th or 6th generation of inbreeding that quality breeders reintroduce new "blood" back into their lines. This keeps the bloodline from going "sour" and creating genetically inferior fish. Take, for example, a trio of Guppies I got back in the late 1960s. These were from the first 1/2 Black Delta tail strains and were very expensive for the time, $25.00 for the trio. I had put them into a tank with a lot of plants and they were breeding like rabbits. The problem was, I got involved with other things and forgot about them and didn't separate the sexes so they were just breeding amongs their siblings and parents. Long story short, by the time I seriously looked at the fish, they had all reverted back to the wild Guppy colors that were selling for about 10 cents a piece. That's the product of too much inbreeding.
You just don't want to arbitrarily breed your fish or you'll wind up with a similar situation to my $25.00 Guppies

That all being said, I prefer to see my fish before I buy them so I don't personally buy online. I'm sure you can get stock from other hobbyists here or at a local fish club so you can keep better records of their genepools.

Hope this helps...