Hybrid Cories?

I'm one of those people who will always pull against being told what to do ... I like to make my own choices in life because there was once a time in my life when I had no choices at all. Call it an over-reaction if you like but at the end of the day it is up to me what I choose to do about these 'possible' hybrids. One thing that is for certain is that they won't being going into my main tank. I have all the bottom dwellers I want or need for now. The only thing I would add is a couple more smudge-spots and that would be purely to up their number to the recommended.
 
We don't know yet for certain what these baby fish are and I am more than happy to chat about things but I won't stand for anyone telling me what I should do. Their welfare is important to me. I refuse to kill them just because they may be a hybrid and as already said, I don't want to keep them unless they turn out to be smudges. That doesn't leave me with many other options and I don't like feeling like I'm being backed into a corner .... the minute I feel like that (as I do at the moment) I will come out fighting 
 
Look at this from another point of view. There are many many fish in the trade that are man-made and there are many species that we can buy now because someone crossed various different types to create another. My angelfish are classic example. My angels are Smokey-Blushing angels and they are stunning. To get Smokey angels you need to cross a chocolate angel with a ghost angel. Once you have the 'smokey' gene to move to Smokey-Blushing you need to breed the 'smokey' to the 'blushing'. If my Smokey-Blushing pair breed 50% of their fry will be Smokey-Blushing like their parents but 25% will be 'Blushing' and the further 25% will be 'chocolate'. We have no issue with this ... there are breeders out there who actively breed specifically to get certain different types. We make no fuss about this but the minute someone accidently crosses two types of cory and there's outcry??? 
 
Think about it
 
We are talking two very different situations which I have tried to explain, so enough on that.  It is unfortunate that you see contrary advice as being told what to do.  The question was asked, and a few of us have tried to answer it.  The end is up to you obviously.
 
Nobody is trying to tell you what to actually do with the fish, with either keeping them in your colony of corys or selling to a fish shop. But we are politely voicing our concerns and there are issues with hybrids especially when an unwitting person ends up with either deliberately bred or accidental hybrids.
In the past such threads about the pros and cons of hybrids have been locked and deleted because the comments got out of hand or certain impartial people didn't like/ agree with the topic in general. I believe such topics need to be addressed, and what better way then in a mature manner where experiences and personal knowledge can go a long way in helping other pet keepers and help them make informed choices.
I am sure you are aware that I keep quite a few birds (as well as fish) and for this I will use bird hybrids for my answers (and to some degree fish). In Australia it is all but impossible (and ridicously expensive) to import birds, so many of the imported species (prior to quarrentine crack downs) are the only breeding stock of certain species and even some of these are dying out in the trade. Take Red Cheeked Cordon Bleus for example, hens are natourisly hard to get so some unscruplous breeders to make a quick buck and to sell off spare Red Cheeked Males, sold pairs of Red Cheeked Male Cordon Bleu finches "paired" with a male all blue cordon bleus (this scam worked well especially if the blue males where still not in full adult plumage). In some cases they did pair a female blue with a Red Cheeked, and the out come unbeknown to the future breeder is going to be a hybrid. This innocent breeder then sells off the offspring in their mind as being male Red cheeked (if they end up showing it) or as female Red Cheeked Cordon Bleus, because after all that was what they originally purchased and never mixed their Cordon Blues with other ones.
Don't for a second think I am saying all breeders are dodgy and out for the quick dollar. But now I will put a twist in the saga. Say in all honesty you take your possible hybrids to a fish shop and are up front and honest about the possible hybridisation of the corydoras. You tell this to either the shop owner or one of the staff that is allowed to make purchases, BUT what if the message never gets passed on? Because people forget or suddenly other customers in the shop want assistance with something before any real notes can be made about the possible hybrids. The upshot can be although you did the right thing and passed on your concerns, the fish are sold off as what ever they look the most like to the shop staff. I know myself my two mystery corydora where originally sold to me as Julii. because as we know all spotty corydoras are julii (tongue in cheek with that one
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.  )​ My point is it is not always the breeders/ sellers/ buyers fault if something sneaks through the cracks even if all care was taken to ensure that the original message was " Caution possible hybrid" .
Here is another example once again using finches as an example but not necessarily hybrids.
Gouldian Finches are quite endangered in the wild, but quite common in the bird trade. So common in fact that now its easier to find mutations than nice original wild stock, (personally I prefer the stunning vibrant wild stock). So one of the ways people wanted to try and preserve the Gouldian species in the wild was to release fully vet checked aviary bred birds. The call went out for contributions from breeders for a large number of wild type Gouldian Finches for this future wild colony. Many of the birds had to be rejected for the program because of so much mutation in feather colour. Keep in mind too many colour variations are recessive and not always visible to the naked eye.
And lastly another example.
Years ago it was feared that a particular breed of Rainbow fish from Fraser Island had gone extinct from its natural lake. A man who had happened to collect some many years previously and never mixed them with other species of Rainbow fish was able to supply his pure fish to National Parks and Wildlife to use for restocking the lake. This would not have been possible if he had mixed his rainbows at some point as rainbow fish readily hybridise.
 
As I am sure you are aware there are many cichlid hybrids getting about from people having mixed schools and it is getting incredibly hard to accurately identify some of the crosses. The crossing not only influences colouration, but also eventual size of the fish and even character. This is true also of dogs. True in any breed you will have timid dogs, active dogs lazy dogs, glutton dogs but the vast majority of dogs in a particular breed will show certain predictable characteristics. E.g Kelpie generally short to mid length hair roughly a certain height, active and have strong herding drive, body generally remains slim.
Mix this with say a labradour which are well known for being food vacumme cleaners on legs and are retreivers not herders so the two traits don't necessarily gel together well. Least of all if the potential buyer is looking for a dog that is content with a casual stroll around the block once a day, over a hyperactive dog that NEEDs to work to burn off its energy and can turn savage and destructive when not given the chance to use their ample brains.Or in relation to cichlid species a more mellow cichlid like a serverum crossed with a more feisty Jag or Oscar.
 
Akasha72 said:
I'm one of those people who will always pull against being told what to do ... I like to make my own choices in life because there was once a time in my life when I had no choices at all. Call it an over-reaction if you like but at the end of the day it is up to me what I choose to do about these 'possible' hybrids. One thing that is for certain is that they won't being going into my main tank. I have all the bottom dwellers I want or need for now. The only thing I would add is a couple more smudge-spots and that would be purely to up their number to the recommended.
 
We don't know yet for certain what these baby fish are and I am more than happy to chat about things but I won't stand for anyone telling me what I should do. Their welfare is important to me. I refuse to kill them just because they may be a hybrid and as already said, I don't want to keep them unless they turn out to be smudges. That doesn't leave me with many other options and I don't like feeling like I'm being backed into a corner .... the minute I feel like that (as I do at the moment) I will come out fighting
You sound so much like myself.
 
Akasha72 said:
please can a mod remove this thread. It's starting to I'd wish I'd never said anything.
 
Many thanks
 
The topic of hybrid fish in the trade is an important topic and as long as the topic is discussed in a respectful, mature manner it is a benefit to the membership.
 
firstly, my apologies for losing my temper yesterday. I'd had a very stressful few days and I guess this discussion became too much and I Lost my rag. I'm normally a calm chilled out kinda girl but ... ya know ... modern life and all that ... I'm sure you guys get what I'm saying. I also know only too well where these kinds on discussions can go - I've seen it many times on forums and my fear was that this topic was going that way, hence my request for it to be closed. 
 
 
So, I want to get a few points straight first. lets say for the sake of discussion that the 3 baby cories that I raised myself from eggs are indeed a cross between smudge-spot and panda. As I understand it they will be infertile? Am I correct in that? If so then there is no chance that they can carry the gene further as they can't and won't breed ... they will be like my bronze cories ... live happily in a tank without ever re-producing.
 
If that is the case then there is no need for any kind of heated discussion between those for or against interbreeding as there is no chance of these fish reproducing and 'dirtying' the cory genes.
 
Let's say though that they can breed in the future. If they breed with a panda they go back to being full panda's ... have I got that correct? The same if they breed with a smudge-spot - they then become full smudge-spot? Have I got that right?
 
Now, I know 'the wild' has been mentioned and I find the notion that my 'possible' hybrid cories could make their way into the wild frankly rediculous. I live in a small town in the centre of England ... I am a million miles from natural cory habitat! If I lived in America then I could understand the fear.
 
Now, as for my comments regarding Angelfish ... I would very much like it if someone can explain why it is positively encouraged to interbreed certain fish (angelfish being a perfect example but there are many others) and not cories. I fail to see the difference between mixing the genetics of two angels and mixing the genetics of two different cories. If nature never intended this to happen it would be impossible.
 
 
Please though can we keep this discussion calm and chilled 
 
Akasha72 said:
firstly, my apologies for losing my temper yesterday. I'd had a very stressful few days and I guess this discussion became too much and I Lost my rag. I'm normally a calm chilled out kinda girl but ... ya know ... modern life and all that ... I'm sure you guys get what I'm saying. I also know only too well where these kinds on discussions can go - I've seen it many times on forums and my fear was that this topic was going that way, hence my request for it to be closed.
Apologies accepted; we all have bad days. 
 
 
So, I want to get a few points straight first. lets say for the sake of discussion that the 3 baby cories that I raised myself from eggs are indeed a cross between smudge-spot and panda. As I understand it they will be infertile? Am I correct in that? If so then there is no chance that they can carry the gene further as they can't and won't breed ... they will be like my bronze cories ... live happily in a tank without ever re-producing.

 
If that is the case then there is no need for any kind of heated discussion between those for or against interbreeding as there is no chance of these fish reproducing and 'dirtying' the cory genes.
Not necessarily, some hybrids are fertile.
 
Let's say though that they can breed in the future. If they breed with a panda they go back to being full panda's ... have I got that correct? The same if they breed with a smudge-spot - they then become full smudge-spot? Have I got that right?
No, you're incorrect. In the first case, the fish would be 3/4 panda, 1/4 smudge spot; in the second, 3/4 smudge spot, 1/4 panda; although they'd be closer to the parent species, they'd still be carrying a mixture of genes, still hybrids.
 
Now, I know 'the wild' has been mentioned and I find the notion that my 'possible' hybrid cories could make their way into the wild frankly rediculous. I live in a small town in the centre of England ... I am a million miles from natural cory habitat! If I lived in America then I could understand the fear.
'In the wild' was partly mentioned in context as to why hybrids rarely, if ever, occur in the wild. And you don't know where your cories genes might end up. What if, from your LFS they go to someone who dies, who's relatives don't know or care if they're hybrids and pass the fish onto to a friend of a friend who keeps fish, who happens to know someone who is working on re-introducing smudge spots to the wild... you see how it could possibly happen, although we'll all admit it is unlikely.
 
Now, as for my comments regarding Angelfish ... I would very much like it if someone can explain why it is positively encouraged to interbreed certain fish (angelfish being a perfect example but there are many others) and not cories. I fail to see the difference between mixing the genetics of two angels and mixing the genetics of two different cories. If nature never intended this to happen it would be impossible.
First, all those angels are already man made colour morphs; none of them occur in wild populations. Secondly, and most crucially, they're all still the same species, in this case Pterophyllum scalare. In the case of the cories, we're talking different species, in this case Corydoras similis and C. panda. Thirdly, it's generally not 'encouraged' to cross different colour morphs.
 
Genes come in whole variety of complicated variants, some more common and bred for in one strain (perhaps a darker yellow in koi strains of angel, a paler yellow in a platinum, just for example) and mixing the different breeds (not species; breeds) dilutes those genes and you end up with fish that are neither one thing or another. Although the way some colour genes work does mean they have to be bred as in your example, that's an exception to the rule. For example, Labrador breeders never cross chocolates and yellows, because the chocolates carry a lot of genes that darken the fur, which would make any yellow puppies in the litter too dark for showing.
 
 
 
It is generally considered in breeding circles that the offspring from a single cross breeding e.g brahman with a hereford creating an F1 Braford would take 7 generations of breeding this single offspring and its subsquent offspring back to either a pure Brahman or Pure Hereford before the offspring would be considered a pure specimen of one the parent breeds.
This 7th generation hurdle is also generally excepted as being the point where a new breed or stable mutation is considered a breed in its own right, constiantly conforming to a particular standard. This is true for dogs, cats, birds, fish, shrimp, its especially true in shrimp breeding and colour developments. Now days there are many shrimp being cross bred to produce new colour variations and even tolerances to different water paramaters. One of the main crosses being developed is Caridina mariae x Caridina logemanni producing Taiwan Bee Shrimp.  First offspring from such a cross will be sold by a reputable breeder as F1 and there is no guarantee that these offspring when bred wont throw any number of colour variations. Second generation will be sold as F2 and so on until what ever the breeder was aiming for is reached with consistly the offspring always showing the same characteristics.
 
As Fluttermoth stated once a pet leaves your household it could end up anywhere, and even if you originally told the first taker about the suspect parentage this can turn into a kind of biological Chinese whispers with the names of the species being changed if mentioned at all as the animals pass through various future hands.
I am sure you have seen the "Help what is this fish" type posts and it is obviously some cichlid hybrid that we can only best guess at going by the markings and size. Worst case scenario is that such a hybrid has been given some made up name and the poor unsuspecting new owner is at a total loss for finding any real information about the fish in question.
 
There is a long standing debate about if there are any pure Endlers in captivity due to their ready cross breeding with guppies, or even if the original wild Endlers where ever truly a breed and not just the outcome of the overlapping of two similar species being able to cross breed naturally. I do recall this debate got quite heated as at one point there was some talk of re-introducing Endlers into their old habitat where they are now thought in some places to be extinct or at least critically endangered.
This cross over of species and habitat has been observed in Australian Rosellas where two species that don't normally encounter each other end up over lapping (often in townships thanks to extra food and water being more readily available), and forming pair bonds. It has even been occasionally observed in smaller cockatoos like Corellas and Galahs.
Generally speaking if the species are close enough biologically then they can produce viable/ nonsterile offspring. If the two species are not closely enough related then the resulting offspring can die half way through development, or never even reach the first stages of embryoic development. Or if by chance they do develop to near adult suddenly dying due to internal genetic problems that may have come about from the cross breeding or just poor luck of the genetic draw.
 
well the good news is that I spoke with my Dad at length about this yesterday and he's told me that the gravel in his tank is rounded with no sharp edges. It's not ideal for cories and his tank is small at 2ft but he could certainly house half a dozen should these fish be hybrid. Problem solved... for now.
 
What happens though if I get further hybrids I do not know. I have decided though that I won't be getting any further panda cories once my existing group die off but that will take a while as they are currently in their prime. I am also going to actively seek out more smudge-spot cories - including ordering some in if I have to in the hope that they will keep any breeding within their own group. I know at least two of the three smudge-spots are female. I rarely see the third as it likes to sit around the back of my wood with my male melini's. For this reason I've not been able to sex it but either way I know I need at least 3 male smudge-spots.
 
If I ever manage to get moved from this flat to a larger place where I can have two tanks running that will be the time that I seperate the panda's from the melini's and the smudge-spots, keeping the panda's alone seen as they are the problem
 
just home from my lfs. I explained the situation and they're going to order in some more smudge-spots, hopefully large enough to sex, and see if we can pick 3 males. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks I'll have male smudge-spots and this problem will go away. No more hybrids .... please (i'm saying this looking into my tank!)
 
Whether or not they are are hybrids... you didnt knowingly cross breed them....
 
Ive kept many a different types of corys in the same tank and never had any cross breed.... I'm not saying this doesnt happen.....
 
But congrats on them making this far.... which is an achievement in the cory breeding world :)  I hope your dad enjoys these corys. in his tank if that's what you decide.
 
thank you for the kind words Harlequins ... in a way I needed that. I was starting to feel quite upset about these little fish. It's been a struggle getting them this far, from getting them to survive the fungus and hatch, then trying to get them to eat something and now to find that they may not be what I thought they were ... well, it's made me wonder why I went to all that trouble.
 
It won't stop me though ... I intend to keep on saving any eggs I find and raising any fry that hatches. Regardless of their parentage they deserve a chance of a good life the same as any animal
 
I am glad this worked out for now.
 
 
One thing to mention... this is one of the reasons that it is often recommended that shoaling species like this be kept in large numbers of their own species and generally if 9 cories (for example) are going to be kept, that all 9 be the same species.  Keeping the species in as large a number as possible and only with their own species within a genus helps to ensure that they don't hybridize.
 
These sorts of things happen from time to time, when they can happen.  
 
see ... nobody tells you that panda cories can breed with other types of cory. It's a bit like nobody telling new dog owners that chocolate is poisonous. If nobody tells you something you don't know and you make the mistakes and you learn something new. It's just a shame that that is to the detriment to an animal
 
 
As things are I've been watching the baby cory that is in my main tank as to begin with that one looked exactly like the 3 in my fry tank - his tail spot was grey, his dorsal was pale and the mask over the eyes was barely there. Now he's almost as big as the adult males his tail spot has suddenly turned black and become more defined. His dorsal now has black edges and black lines and looks to be turning black slowly and I noticed yesterday the mask over his eyes is becoming more defined. I'm confused ... have I got hybrid cories or have I just got baby cories that are slow to colour up the black for some reason. All these cories were born when I had my pH problem and my pH was only 4 .... cories born since I got it back up to 6 are growing up with the right colouration for panda's
 

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