FishProfiles.com Message Forums

I call him Jayjay and he is around 1 feet long.
Super big and have him already for 3 years now.
Comments welcome.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a92/Jam420/Nk1035918807.jpg

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a92/Jam420/Nk1048698311.jpg

Best Regards,
Chingmixusa

Im not a huge fan of hybrid species , but he is quite a beast nontheless! Obviously thrives in your company.

Probably a stupid question here, but what's a hybrid species?

1 Ocellaris Clown: $14.95...1 Pink Dottyback: $12.99...1 Three Striped Damsel: $4.50...1 Blue Velvet Damsel: $8.95
The Problems that come with them: Priceless

A hybrid species is an organism that came from parents of two different species. Perfect example is the mule: it is the offspring of a horse and a donkey.

They are a little controversial in the fish world because hybrids can be a little sickly, or if they breed back with one of the original species, they can introduce undesirable traits into the original species' gene pool.

Joe Potato

Hi,

I guess there different people in this world and some love this type of fish and some love the pure species. My preference is this type and I love to watch him because it helps me calm my self down from a stress day of work and its colorful, sparkley, and they also very smart. He like to play with me swimming circles fanning out his fins and tail letting me know he likes my presence. Anyways, just sharing my hybrid cichlid.

Chingmixusa

He sounds like a wonderful fish.

Joe Potato

Actually,
Some flowerhorn gene has already been stabilized where
one flowerhorn breed to another female flowerhorn, will produce a flowerhorn.
There are many farms that have already stabilized a few different strains of flowerhorn.
One strain is the golden monkey from malaysia and another is the pearly zz strain in
Indonesia.

It is similar to dogs in a way, Dogs are hybrids that have been selectively bred to become
a type of dog that can be named and sold with papers and other things. If you raise
a dog the wrong way, it can be mean and dangerous. But if you raise it correctly, it can
be the most gentle dog in the world.

Chingmixusa

I think he's a beut, but please don't start the "hybrid Vs. pure" debate.

By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
Socrates-
I happen to have become a philosopher

Dogs are hybrids

No, they're not. They're all the same species: Canis lupus familiaris. You could argue that a cross between a gray wolf (Canus lupus) and a domestic dog (Canus lupus familiaris) would be an intra-specific hybrd because gray wolves and domestic dogs are different subspecies.

I'm glad that the flowerhorn gene pool has stabilized. Makes the whole species much healthier.

Just for the record, I'm not judging one way or the other about hybrids. I was merely explaining why some fishkeepers don't like hybridized species.

But the important part is, he's a lovely fish.

Joe Potato

Dogs are nothing like fish temperamentally either, fish have far more trouble resisting primal urges than dogs do, primarily because of having a great deal less conscious control over their emotional state, and the fact that compared to brain activity and size fish hormonal responses are enormous, and have a much greater bodily impact. Most dogs are neutered family pets, and this too help control dominance and aggression issues. A fish can literally be at the mercy of its instincts, unable to control the need to fight, to predate, and to maintain territorial boundaries. They could end up turning a legitimate pet fish into a monstrosity with uncontrollable aggression issues and health problems.

Ever seen a parrot cichlid at the extremes , when a fish has been so selectively bred that the face is completely twisted sideways, the back fins are gone and its like a lump of flesh with no semblance to a real fish? Well, I can see flowerhorns going the same way. It will be a great shame.

While fish can certainly be habituated into certain behaviours, non aggression isnt one of them. You can prevent habituated behaviour like the massive feeding responses that say arowanas have by carefully avoiding conditions of reinforcement , but if a cichlid wants to be truly aggressive, aside from giving them exclusive territory theres very little that can be done. You can reduce aggression, and you can avoid it, but you cant eliminate it. You cant truly control the sexual imperative of a fish by training.

Thousands of fish worldwide get mutilated and killed because people think that somehow they can magically stop certain specimens from being aggressive.You can cater to fish to avoid them becoming abnormally aggressive by meeting their needs, using sensible stocking, and meeting resource conditions, but you cant stop the standard aggression when its normal for a given species, at least not without damaging it with obesity,or malnutrition or causing it psychological damage, or moderating the hormone levels.

Perhaps your fish is calmer than most simply because its quite chunky? Sometimes the fatter ones are a little calmer, often because their organs are metabolically compromised and less hormones are produced. Under such circumstances some male fish produce less male and more female hormones.

If a flowerhorn pair were allowed to command the full extent of a territory , much as its multiple wild progenitor species might, it could command and happily patrol and exclude other fish from a tankspace of around 3000 gallons, or roughly 10x10x4 feet. Its small wonder they have a notable and often deserved reputation as killers in the aquarium. Not a big deal in a river, but a hell of a deal in the home.

Good luck trying to control that!

A flowerhorn contains the genes of midas cichlid, they are all that and more. Add to that the selective breeding for increasingly ridiculous sized nuchal humps and a rounder shape, and you get increased aggression and curvature of the spine. This is a fish that could be accepted as a pretty hybrid that is not putting a drain on wild stocks (which lets face it , is a good thing), and can be personable to the keeper, but fishbreeders always it seems have to go too far in the pursuit of a certain look. Its not that I dislike flowerhorns, its that I dislike the agendas of some of the people who breed them.

longhairedgit

It seems like you can argue and type a very long paragraph, but i think you missed my point. But in any case, you can feel free to believe what you want. People have proven
having community tanks with flowerhorn and that is true. I dont think you need 3000gal
tank. As again, you are over exagerating the situation.

I am not here to argue but it does seem like you do. I like pure species as well as
hybrids. So its not a pure vs hybrid issue. I am just a hobbiest just like you and me.
Lets keep this place peacefull okay?

Chingmixusa

I dont think a 3000 gal would be practical either, but the point is im trying to impress upon you the forces at work that you feel are so easily tamed. Its really not that easy, and youd have to have an almost abnormally passive specimen to begin the kind of community settings youre advocating. The comment is also incredibly relevant when you consider how a flowerhorn will regard its cagemates. In another thread you just posted to a guy who just lost a dempsey to a flowerhorn about putting other fish with them. The penny hasnt dropped yet has it?

I agree its not a real vs hybrid fish thing either, its about realistic expectation. This is a fish for specialists that should not really be included in communities as most people know them, and as for training them, im sorry , but its rubbish.

The comments are peaceful, and they also happen to be the truth.

Put it another way , suppose people with large established community tanks on this site read what you have written and think its safe to put a flowerhorn in that community because you said to them it can be trained, or raised out of the aggressive habit. Give it a month and how many fish do you think will have died? The people that have proven they can be put into community are the exception to the rule, are riding their luck, and you know it. Its just like occassions when lions adopt deer, cats dont kill mice and snakes sometimes ignore their food. Its pure, dumb , unadulterated luck of the draw.Ive seen vidoes where pirahnas ignore guppies goldfish and gouramies, sometimes for months on end,Ive seen convict cichlids share with other cichlids is a tank as small as 40 gallon, but we all know thats not how it ends 99 percent of the time.

Care to give me a consevative estimate on how many deaths we'd get if everyone had a flowerhorn to go in their cichlid community?

I posted this on the other thread and so far this tank has been no casulty.
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a92/Jam420/gallery_1_306_130082.jpg
Do let me know what you think?

Chingmixusa

Thats what petshops do, barren, featureless, low on stimulation, and complete territorial overstock.Its an age old trick of denying them territory in order to prevent aggression. Sometimes it lasts for months , but sooner or later one fish dominates. Noticeably there arent any of the smaller "toy" fish you were advocating in the other thread. Its denying them the right to normal behaviour. Thats the sort of tank you get in a chinese restaurant. Thats not training of any kind. Its relying on the sublimation of natural instinct. No wonder you think flowerhorns can be peaceful, that kind of setup would stunt the natural instincts of most fish. When good fishkeepers take their fish home its often with the intention that they should never have to go back to that and have a much richer life, and fulfill some of their natural potential.

Most people here way surpass levels of environmental stimulation for their fish compared to that. I scarcely consider that fishkeeping. Its like shop stocking or holding bins at a wholesalers.That picture really did clear things up for me.

Look, dont take it personally, theres a huge culture of people who keep their fish that way, but here we generally indulge our fish a little more as regards home comforts. I guess sometimes its hard for people to seriously take on board the passion for giving their animals a home away from home, and if youve never done it, then I guess you wouldnt know the contrasts, and the rewards for the fish.

It also completely explains why you havent seen flowerhorns do their thing. In one of my larger tanks a flowerhorn would rediscover its instincts almost immediately , aand take a territory and enforce it, you just havent experienced that. Your treating a fish that claims a home as a pelagic fish, and its not what they are designed for, consequently they are not behaving at all normally.

Ok, now I get it, and we may argue points on stuff, but look on the bright side, youre about to discover a whole new level of fishkeeping away from situations that rely on a setup that keeps fish in a state of mental immaturity.

A flowerhorn should be doing all the things that cichlids do, moving gravel around,building spawning pits, cleaning rocks, having a background territory that it earned to display against, coming out when they feel brave, enjoying shelter when they feel exposed,generally buggering up plants, constantly rummaging around for food, and generally enjoying all the things that are part of being a fish, all the sights smells and activities to keep them mentally awake,sharp, and thinking, and well, normally bloody evil tempered! They love it!

Obviously though, judicious stocking is essential as previously mentioned. See? Now hopefuly you realise why most people wouldnt include flowerhorns in community, because in a more natural setup, and with normal behaviour they'd maim each other apart from compatible pairs, and compatible pairs would probably main everything else too! In a setup like yours you may never see the worst of them, but youll never see them at their best either.

I guarantee you'll never look back.

Honestly bro,

The picture is one of my friends community tank and there are more different types of setups. Trust me brotha, you are totally wrong and speak as if you became a fish when in fact you can not prove any of your theories. In any case, i doubt that you will ever understand because I have also seen flowerhorn in a tank with a natural setting of stones and pebbles and still live peacefully. As i stated I have3 years of experience in taking care of these beautiful hybrids and understand there mentality. I do know of what you are talking about and I do not deny it, but there is another side to it where you can have a nice community tank setup nicely and still have them live peacefully. Do let me know how many years of flowerhorn experience you do have. If you dont have much then how can you justify what you say.

Best Regards,
Chingmixusa

6 years actually, ever since the first one came into rescue with half its face ripped off. Sorry kid, but you dont know what your talking about. Fish behaviour, was part of my degree, as was a study into hybrid cichlids. Thats the only reason I own a pair of parrots now. Flowerhorns were part of the test groups partly because they were a good control example for abnormal behaviour. Both myself and a couple of PHD students were looking at them for behavioural comparatives. What you have there is not a nice normal community, its a situation where the fish are prevented from reacting normally by behavioural displacement. The study was done with sponsorship from the fish industry in an effort establish behavioural prerequisites for large scale commericial breeding. Flowerhorns all scored badly compared to most other species, and put to that in perspective , they consistantly tested more aggressive and less viable than red devils and red terrors under a range of conditions. Bottom line, they are one of the most aggressive fish you can keep, short of keeping them in conditions that denies them natural behaviour. I dare say the sponsors werent entirely thrilled with the content of the paper (if indeed they cared at all) but it was a well performed set of tests, with excellent control. Basically it confirmed what was already known, on the theme weve already discussed. Its an easy thing to prove, and indeed there is hardly a need, Thousands of flowerhorn keepers have experienced their levels of personal aggression.In this case the burden of proof is very much in your court. You can look at virtually hundreds of videos on youtube etc, where flowerhorns are beating numerous cagemates to death. Unfortunately people glorify it , which I think is sick,but its the fish's temperament that attracts the sicko crowd. But assumming they had a peaceful nature to begin with is often how such problems begin. A juvenile may be peaceful, but when they mature they can be tank clearers. This is a huge problem in fishkeeping, with many fighting the good fight to stop it, but advocating they have toy species and be kept in community solves nothing, and does in fact contribute to the problem. Seriously,go look, this isnt a few isolated videos, there are thousands of them, and extrapolate how many people wont have a camera and wont use the net and you realise how much abuse keeping goes on behind closed doors.

I appreciate its a lot to take in especially when net culture and shops are your teachers,and you may have been misinformed all the time youve kept fish, rather than quantifiable scientific study making up the backbone of the information you go on, but hey thats what were here for- to share information.

I'm not trying to make your life difficult here, i'm trying to help you understand fish behaviour so that you can take better care of your fish. I understand what your trying to say, and to some degree I also know that you think you are doing a good thing, and I appreciate that for its intent, but the behavioural control your excercising is a bit archaic and skewed toward lack of environmental enrichment. I can see where the mistake is made, and how you might think its doing the best for the fish, but really, there are other ways, much more geared to the happiness of the fish, to giving it mental stimulation and normal mental development.

You have to ask yourself , does it give them a better life to avoid aggression by stunting their development, or is it better to give them free reign to express themselves,experience environmental enrichments and stock in a way that avoids fights while still giving them a life.

Its not always about how many fish you can get in a tank. There is a reasion good fishkeepers are moving away from tanks with no stimulation for their fish, much as there is a renaissance in keeping all sorts of animals in a more enlightened way, the better to avoid stunted mental development and stereotypical behaviour. Perhaps you dont realise it, but keeping fish in territorial overstock, with no stimulation or indulgence for their natural instincts isnt a good thing, and yes i know people have unending difficulty in putting themselves in a fish's position, but personally I dont find it difficult, though it is complicated. I appreciate that as far as places to live go Gaum only has a population of around 175,0000, and as such probably gets most of its fishkeeping info from the net, and wont be inundated with fish experts. There is a bigger pond out there and a bigger knowledgebase available. Trust me , using overstock principles and bare tanks is a retrograde step, not an improvement. Its worth looking at a more cosmopolitan range of sources, particularly those from france and germany, who tend to be more advanced even than american and british keepers.The oriental sources are some of the most factual, but again you have to bear in mind the fish in such places are exploited heavily for the satisfaction of the human, with the happiness of said fish taking second place to demands of human auterism and control. While they may technically have an excellent grasp of fishkeeping, their records on humane animal care are often questionable , and the frequency of abuse very high. Asia will have a strong influence on animal keeping in Guam because of the high influx of asian culture, and few visitors from the mainland US. So I understand how the outlook gets in the common psyche, I really do.

Your perfectly entitled to disagree with me, and I guess you have no cause to listen from the experiences you have learned so far, but there is more to be learned before advocating behavioural sublimination of fish as a keeping technique. It helps to start with the behaviour of the fish and work up from that rather than to take the desire of the human, and try to get the fish to fit the mold.

Somehow i get the feeling though, you wont listen no matter what I say or how much truth is in what I say. Still, thats a daily chore to deal with for some of us, but we never stop trying to make things better for the fish.Or ever will. I do truly hope your flowerhorn is an exceptional specimen and that he remains peaceful, for the sake of other fish if nothing else, but I know that the odds are against it.

If I may ask a favour though, please keep in mind their aggressiveness as a possibility, as it will lessen the doubtless blow should someone come back to you blaming you for advocating the keeping of flowerhorns in community if their fish are killed, and should your own fish turn or "become" as some flowerhorn keepers seem to like calling it, it wont be so much of a shock, and you'll know what to do to rectify any problems.

That really is the last I'll say on the subject, I know when im wasting words. Just think about it.

Well, it's been an interesting read to be sure.... I just wanted to say to Chingmixusa that I think that JayJay is a wild looking cichlid and it's great that you've had him so long and he has thrived in your care... Dynamite looking fish, thanks for sharing him with us!

I agree this has been a very interesting read.

Chingmixusa, Jayjay is nice & attractive. Good looking fish. Thanks for sharing him with us. I'm glad he is happy with you.

I do agree with a lot that LHG has said though. Why risk fish deaths at all?

My preference is for a natural looking tank & I would like your tank better if you created more of a natural habitat for your fish. But each to their own, I guess.

Hope you get many more years of enjoyment from your fish.



Cheers
TW

I really like him. He loks like he has a big squishy head. Nice job raising him so big and plump. Lol what do you feed him. What size tank is he in?Once again nice job.

Thanks guys for the comment,

I am pretty much done talking to the professional that believe in what he believes.
But anyways I have my Jayjay living in a 55gallon with 1 female red shock for his companion. I do have some updated pictures.

here it is:
Hi Guys,

I have been trying a few new products and so far It seems to work wonders. First thing I changed in my routine is water. I am currently using Hexagonal Water for my Water Changes. The improvements are quite nice and I have really enjoy seeing how wonderful this Water is. I also am Testing out a New Chingmix Pellet. This Chingmix Pellet is still under Testing and I would Call it Chingmix Maintenance Pellet. It is used to help clean out the internal system and help make the Flowerhorn Healthy. Anyways, here is a few pictures of how Jayjay Looks.

Before:

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a92/Jam420/Nk1035918807.jpg

After:

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a92/Jam420/GM9.jpg

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a92/Jam420/GM8.jpg

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a92/Jam420/GM7.jpg