Inbreeding in fish

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lanceuppercut

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Mar 1, 2010
Messages
56
How bad is inbreeding for the fish? I have a multi tank that started off with only 1 male and one female, and its starting up the third generation. should I look for some "new blood", or will they be OK?
 
If you plan to keep the tank only for yourself, over time the quality of the fish that keep breeding will be reduced but otherwise not an issue. If you plan on breeding them to sell them, you will want to keep the inbreeding to a minimum for quality resale.
 
Well, I wasn't planning on selling them. What do you mean by "quality"? wouldn't this eventually be detrimental to the fish being born?
 
As the fish get more and more interbred they lose some of their qualities. Such as for example guppies would start to lose more color. The rating system for fish, F1 F2 F3 ect is how they are graded. F1 is one from wild, F2 is second generation, F3 is third generation etc.

I have had several fish interbreed in tanks and have had very little changes to the fish over time. I honestly don`t know how many interbreeds it would take before it would be considered detrimental to the fish. I haven`t seen it myself yet except in cross breeding.
 
I've heard six generations is a good limit, at least as far as guppies are concerned. I've got a tank of blue metallics that are on the fourth or fifth generation and I have more problems due to overcrowding than inbreeding. I've been unloading the fish on Craigslist with the intention of getting some fresh blood though.
 
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