do you think there are retarded fish
- Thread starter denden
- Start date
Down's Syndrome is human-specific: it's exact meaning is that the person has an extra copy of *I think* gene #13.. (going off of HS bio here, so any geneticists out there can feel free to correct me)
But fish and other animals can certainly have different genetic deformities.
My roomate's mom actually has a cat that has a genetic brain disorder: it has a hard time with balance and depth perception..
But fish and other animals can certainly have different genetic deformities.
My roomate's mom actually has a cat that has a genetic brain disorder: it has a hard time with balance and depth perception..
It's interesting that you brought up this topic up Denden. Tbh I think we should have a in depth discussion on this topic in this forum. Tbh I have these 2 sunset platys that I got from a platy that I used to cycle one of my tanks. Now these 2 platys were survivers from a batch of fry that I got from the female adult. This was my first attempt ever in raising fry and what I ended up with IMO are 2 midget platys. They are most certainly much smaller than the regular sized platys that I see in my lfs where i got the original adult female. Ive had these 2 little fish for over a year now and they don't seem to be growing any bigger even if they have a huge appetite and eat all the time. I'm not sure if this happened because I did not raise them properly or fed them the right type of food or maybe because they did not have salt in their water. What ever the reason they are surely smaller than a normal sized sunset platy. However they seem very healthy and they have a strong appetite as I indicated earlier. To correct you happyfishies my girlfriend says that down syndrome is an extra chromosone for the chromosone pair #21. If anyone else has any sort of deformed or "special" fish please write down your story on this board. 
Genetically there is definately a chance that fish have certain deformities from the get-go. Any breeder could tell you that. But fry growth is also determined by the water quality and nutrition just as the growth of any animal (humans included) is. I too used to raise platy/swordtail/molly fry and what I discovered is the higher the density of fish I had in the tank (ie crammed to the gills with fry) the smaller the fish would be at maturity. This is an adaptation of population pressure, but nothing to do with the orginal genetics of the fish.
In the wild of course, any fish with a deformity is immedately gobbled up. In domestication, fish with deformities are usually culled so they don't pass the deformity on and weaken the strain. 95% of the time fry with any type of deformity will just not thrive anyway so culling becomes a moot point.
Water quality is also very essential to fish health. The fish may be genetically perfect, but if its environment is not, then imbalances in the body could happen. Fish -are- their water quality/chemistry so if it is not proper for that fish or the fish has been improperly acclimated, then the fish will certainly suffer some ill-effect from it.
Polyautosomy human fetus usually spontaneously abort before ever being born since lots of polychromy combinations are lethal-gene combinations. The genetics book says one of the few exceptions is Down Syndrome, which is trisomy (three) #21 from incomplete seperation of the chromosome durig meiosis, and normally occures in the egg. I'd go into the whole physiological theory as to why but that would probably bore people. It is really fascinating though.
More fascinating are the sex-lined genetic abormalities such as trisomy-X, or XXY syndromes. These are mostly non-fatal.
Fish eggs that are somehow genetically defored probably just don't hatch.
~~Colesea
In the wild of course, any fish with a deformity is immedately gobbled up. In domestication, fish with deformities are usually culled so they don't pass the deformity on and weaken the strain. 95% of the time fry with any type of deformity will just not thrive anyway so culling becomes a moot point.
Water quality is also very essential to fish health. The fish may be genetically perfect, but if its environment is not, then imbalances in the body could happen. Fish -are- their water quality/chemistry so if it is not proper for that fish or the fish has been improperly acclimated, then the fish will certainly suffer some ill-effect from it.
Polyautosomy human fetus usually spontaneously abort before ever being born since lots of polychromy combinations are lethal-gene combinations. The genetics book says one of the few exceptions is Down Syndrome, which is trisomy (three) #21 from incomplete seperation of the chromosome durig meiosis, and normally occures in the egg. I'd go into the whole physiological theory as to why but that would probably bore people. It is really fascinating though.
More fascinating are the sex-lined genetic abormalities such as trisomy-X, or XXY syndromes. These are mostly non-fatal.
Fish eggs that are somehow genetically defored probably just don't hatch.
~~Colesea
Fish mutations are responsable for many of the different kinds of fish available. Googly eyed twin tail calico colored goldfish are a great example. They look much different than their natural brethren. One note: A lot of people think that inbreeding animals causes mutations. That is not true. The genes are already there but breeding siblings together or breeding fish to their parents simply allows recesive traits to show.
Mutation can occur, especially with the increased cross-over exchange done by chromitids during division or increased genetic fagility due to inbreeding. In the wild, adaptive traits would lead to greater survival, therefore those individuals would have greater procreation success and the trait would get passed on to successive generations. Some of those traits may be recessive, and continue in the gene lines as double recessives with the dominate phenotype being lost. Genes have a bell-curve average of expression and breeding those individuals only at one end of the curve does modify the gene, therefore mutating it so the average shifts towards that end of the curve.
~~Colesea
~~Colesea
say this as loud as you can it is a must ok hear it goes I AM SOFA KING WE TODD DID sorry i had to do that i was telling a co worker about how i was getting a lot of responses on my retarded fish and he wrote that on a piece of paper and i actualy fell for it in front of like 10 people i'm such a moron sorry if i offendid any of you out there w/ that joke but i liked it and thought this would be the place to pass it along the barb is doing better now though still hangs out alone all the time *laughingcryingsmiley* *crazysmiley*
Don't know if it's common, but my red platy (which is normal in growth, appearence, eating habits) thinks it's a tiger barb.
It hangs with them all the time - as part of the "pack"
I swear it has even tried to do the little Tbarb tango with one of the girls.
(the husband from Texas says, "Can't he see? He ain't one of them.... she knows it (pointing to the female Tbarb that's on the run) Hell... he sticks out like a turd in the sugar bowl..)
It hangs with them all the time - as part of the "pack"
I swear it has even tried to do the little Tbarb tango with one of the girls.
(the husband from Texas says, "Can't he see? He ain't one of them.... she knows it (pointing to the female Tbarb that's on the run) Hell... he sticks out like a turd in the sugar bowl..)