There are regrettably no more regular monthly meetings but from time to time one is arranged for MEMBERS and Friends ONLY.
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In advance of the meeting Mike would like members to consider the following for discussion at the meeting I have a large tropical pond (25 feet x 10) in my tropical greenhouse. I only keep small fish in this to observe their behaviour. Two species of interest are red tailed golden Guppies and Cardinal Tetras. The Guppies breed profusely and the Cardinal Tetras spawned on a regular basis with no success, probably because the eggs were all eaten. My guppies rapidly started to produce young with much enhanced colours, even on the females. The most unusual colour was an emerald stripe down the length of the body, even on a few females. Eventually after about two years the Cardinal Tetras died, but the Guppies continued to breed. Now their youngsters were more normal colouring of red tailed golden Guppies. Unfortunately all the brightly hued Guppies eventually died without passing on their colour traits. Now I know genetic material is not supposed to be able to pass from Cardinal Tetras to Guppies, but something must have passed to the Guppies to create this wonderful colouring. Do you have any idea how this could happen? Possibly you do not, in which case could you repeat my experiment and breed red tailed golden Guppies with Cardinal Tetras? The water pH. was 7.2 I use tap water in the pond and change about 6" of water every week or 10 days. When available I use rain water for changes, but have to use tap water quite often. My own theory is that when the Cardinal Tetras were spawning all the fish were around gobbling up the eggs. This included young virgin female guppies. As guppies are fertilised by the male releasing sperm near the female's vent and the sperm just swim in. So, in this case Cardinal tetra sperm just swam into virgin female guppies and hybrids evolved. The parents were very distantly related so no offspring were fertile. It just makes you realise how distantly related some hybrids might be possible. I would love to hear your theories on this experiment and also if possible the results of you or anyone else trying this experiment. |
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NEW - Pictures of the 2014, 2015 and 2016 Home Aquarium Competions With videos of the winning AquariumsRab's Picture GalleriesMembers will know that I am a keen amateur photographer and as I pay for the hosting of this site I have taken the liberty of posting some of my picture sets in a sub section of the site.The latest set are from a trip my wife and I took after we retired. We spent 4 months exploring New Zealand and Australia and then spent 5 weeks on a ship coming home via South Africa Please have a look Rab's Picture Galleries and Rab's Big Trip Down Under |