Crossbreeding BNs?

This may sound like a silly question, but will different types of BNs breed? Or will they breed with different types of Plecos, ie. clowns, rubbermouths and so on?

I just got to thinking about this and now I'm really courious.

Eaglehorsesmom

Eaglehorsesmom wrote:

This may sound like a silly question, but will different types of BNs breed? Or will they breed with different types of Plecos, ie. clowns, rubbermouths and so on?

I just got to thinking about this and now I'm really courious.

Eaglehorsesmom

good question i will look into this for you......

As far as I know some ancistrus will X breed :Ancistrus sp3 is the most noteable
(common brown B/N) and also this why sp3 doesn't have an Lno- it's already a hybrid.
I've haven't heard of L182 breeding with L183 all though so closely related and an
Ancistrus species, and never heard of AncistrusXPanaque(L104)
With the example of the L182XL183 I think the fish just know they are not meant
to breed together .
J

yes they will cross breed i have bred my albino's with common bristlenose, and i have also bred my albino with a longfin brown

i am currently trying to breed my calico longfin male with a l144 female just to see what happens lol

"L Number mad wrote:

yes they will cross breed i have bred my albino's with common bristlenose, and i have also bred my albino with a longfin brown

i am currently trying to breed my calico longfin male with a l144 female just to see what happens lol

Good answer....this should be interesting keep us posted on this one....
If your fry have 3 eye's then stop straight away lol......

P.S Good Luck......... :cyclops:

Cross breeding, hybridizing etc, brings up the question of what is a species to you.

I find that with Ancistrus the capture location has as much or more to do with what species it is rather than the characteristics of the fish. Call me dense, but his really doesn't make sense to me. No wonder they have a difficult time sorting out the species. Also lack of a known capture location for the original common BN when it came into the trade has as much to do with the lack of it's species designation as any hybridization.

The common aquarium strain brown Ancistrus is species 3, the albino form is species 4. Another species designation for what in any other animal would just be another color of the same species?????

That said, there are many Ancistrus types with distinctly different characteristics that are obviously different species (or sub species depending on your point of view) A. claro, A. ranunculus, A. eustrictus ... long list.....

The genetics of the common BN are a horrible mess. this could be the result of undocumented hybridization or the selection and propagation of mutants. There are known to be at least two genetically distinct forms of albino, and perhaps more... I suspect there may be at least 2 genetically different forms of long fin also. 90% or better of today's L144s are just a color morph of the common BN though the original L144 was a separate species.

Personally I don't think breeding the different color morphs (or fin morphs) of the common aquarium strain BN is hybridizing any more than breeding a bay to a black Thoroughbred horse would be. It all depends upon your point of view.

Regards
Amber

I agree amber a very good point and a very good reply were has your head full of info been??

Wow, thanks for all the insight, guys. Amber, I have wondered the same thing. I raised horses for twenty years, cross-breds mostly. I think that may be what put the question in my mind. If Plecos are the same species, just differen't "breeds" would they be like my horses were? Or at least as far as BNs go.

I love hearing different opinions, and results, that people have. Hopefully I will get more. I'm still learning, so everything I read helps.

Eaglehorsesmom

Eaglehorsesmom, you have raised horses for 20 yrs. I have 40+ years in raising and exhibiting purebred chickens and rabbits. I believe we are both looking at this fish hybridization issue from an animal husbandry point of view rather than a fish keeper, fish researcher perspective.

Take a hypothetical fish, I'll call it Fishius swimii. Say this species was found in two separate lakes. I would say the fish are the same species. My observations tell me the fish keeper/researcher would say the gene pools of these fish have been isolated for many years therefore they are separate species. This outlook certainly explains the emphasis on capture location for species ID rather than the characteristics of the fish.

I don't think there is a right or wrong here, just a different perspective, but recognizing these different points of view aids in understanding and learning.

Again, no right or wrong, but I consider all the aquarium strain common BN to be the same thing no matter what color or fin type. In the US it is being called A. cf cirrhosus. The "cf" meaning looks like as opposed to is. I have read the reasons for giving this species designation to the common BN and it seems valid to me. Likely A. cirrhosis is the primary species behind the common aquarium strain, but hybridization has almost certainly occurred. Lets face it, unless you look closely most Ancistrus just look like little brown fish. It's easy to see how crosses could have happened accidentally many times; then add to this people who deliberately crossed types of fish to see what would result and sold the fry without mentioning they were cross breeds. I probably wouldn't breed an common aquarium strain to anything but another common aquarium strain, nor would I deliberately buy a common BN/claro cross. On the other hand if I found that it had occurred somewhere in the background of my fish I wouldn't be horribly upset either.

I am more conservative with BN other than the common aquarium strain BN. So many of these fish have not been fully described in the wild and I'd hate to lose them as a unique type through hybridization even if they do prove to be what I would consider to be a different breed of the same species.

All Plecos are not the same species, but you can bet my perspective would produce a lot fewer species designations than what is currently listed.


Regards
Amber

sorry to tired to read your long posts amber,Eaglehorsesmom commons albinos marbles shortfin or longfin are the same fish,peps won't breed with them cause there a different species it would be like trying to breed a shark with a dolphin it just won't happen lol