odd offspring

[exhumed07]

ok I had a couple cichlids and can't remember the names of them. but both the male and female are quite pail yellow. I had them secluded in my 20 gallon tank and they just happened to spawn while quarentined. this was a few months ago and to my suprize I now have a couple striking looking offspring from them. one has recently died though. bad idea to put it im my 55. thought it was big enough. I was wrong .

Anywho I was able to get 6 offspring to survive to juvy stage. thing is 3 of them were pail except 1 ended up getting a orngaish color to it and blue dorsal and pectoral fins as well as blue veins in it's tail. was absolutly beautiful. saddly this was the one I put in the 55. then the other 3 were kinda a brown color with 2 shades of brown vertical bars down the length. however again one happens to be showing viberant blue coloring and I happen to have pics of it. but this one has a powder blue stripe accross the top of the dorsal fin with a beautiful shade of blue on the rest. then the body has the brown bars but they too have a blue irrodecent shimer to them. the tail has some blue veins/spots as well. and then the anal fin has a slight dash of orange on the bottom. now I am intruged as well as amazed at the batch I have.

I mean to have 6 fish with 3 being brown and 3 being yellowish and with both types having one outsanding looking fish is just incredible since I know the parents look nothing like them and I know they spawned with eachother. and both parents are of the same species.

I know I"m kinda rambling but I've been watching them grow for months now and I am still amazed as well as dumbfounded by this. anyway I'll stop rambling and post this then get the pics posted.

 

[exhumed07]

the first pic aint great but u can see the yellowish colored siblings which one has a mouth full of babies right now so I'm guessing they are the females. the second I had the flash on and u can see the blue shimmer the scales have. then the third is a good shot of her broadside and u can see her shape as well as a decent depiction of her coloration with the vertical bars as well as the orange on the anal fin.

None of the pics are all that great since I boobooed on the feralizer and had a horrid algea outbreak and still trying to get it under control. so that would be why they are so darn fuzzy.

 

[exhumed07]

it took me a lil while but got a pic of the father of these juvies I got. the female looks the same just without the orange along the top of the doral fin.

 

[exhumed07]

suprised noone has commented on my strange cercumstance.

 

[exhumed07]

ok I just did a massive water change and the water is now clear so I got some realy good pics of the fish in question.

Now u can see what I"m talking about in how the offspring are realy different even though both parents are of the same species.

the first pic u can see the brightly colored one compaired to it's paler sibling.

the second pic realy highlights the blue color. and also u can see my dojo loach.

third one again shows off the beautiful blue.

and finally the forth pic is another of it's siblings wich for some reason is again totally different looking.

I had one with the same general color as in the 4th pic only it got to be realy orange in color with the blue shimmer along it's sides and the blue dorsal fin and anal fin.

now don't get me wrong I love this blue one. will realy add a nice splash of color in my 55 once it's big enough, but I'm still confused as to how so many different looking fish came from the same parent when she spawned with one of the same species.

 

[exhumed07]

well I went to my lfs today and comes to find out my baby in these pics is an electric blue red shoulder peacock. aparently the parents will throw this mutation every now and then. they have had a few babies from their original breeding pair they have with this mutation. at least I aint confused anymore and now I know what these are and now I shall begine the proccess of trying to breed these cause they are an absolutly beautiful fish.

 

[ValRasbora]

Those are GORGEOUS fish!!
You are so lucky

 

[no.1chuy]

yea bro they look cool

 

[robinanne]

they are really lovely. how big are they now?

 

[Whiskers]

looks a lot like my white tipped masoni. nice looking brood.

 

[Cichlid-Man]

In the first pic in post #5 that looks like a male a female, hence why they look different.

 

[tropicalcrazy]

beautiful fish you got

 

[airelav1]

Beautiful fish!!! So lucky!

My guess at this strange circumstance is that in the gene pool somewhere there was a brown fish and with blue coloring also. These genes must have been recessive and so they passed onto the offspring of the yellow fish.

Blue/brown fish + Yellow fish (parents) = Yellow fish, Yellow Fish, Yellow Fish, Blue/brown fish (offspring) ?
...
Then one of the yellow fish carries the recessive gene of Blue/brown (and mates with another fish that has this recessive gene), then produces some offspring that show this trait.

That's my theory anyway, hope it helps! *SUNSMILE*

 

[exhumed07]

they are about 2 inches long now. but from what my lfs told me about them is that the first pair of fish I bought are a man made hybrid species and on occation they will throw that mutation and creat what he told me is an electric blue red shouldered peacock. I wish I could tell u what the original parents are called but I keep forgetting to write it down and it's to strange of a name for me to remember lol. but I had one more of the yellowish colored one that had a ton of orange and a blue shimmer to it which is what the male is suppossed to look like. the small anorexic looking one is what the females are suppossed to look like. and just fyi she is so skinny in that pic cause she went about 2 weeks without eating since she had a mouth full of babies. but the blue one is the male red shouldered peacock and the brown ones are the females. it's just strange cause I got 2 species of fish from one type though lol.