Colour_genes

:digH: :roll: :facepalm:

Same creature. I quote from 'Reptiles & Amphibians of New Zealand' by Tony Jewell - "Whistling frog Litoria ewingii. ~ flash markings on thighs bright orange ~ In Australia known as the brown tree frog" I suggest you think carefully about the information above for a few minutes before you decide on a reply Enjoy your frog.

I think in this instance, the tourists are actually the equivalent of the fish, ie biosecurity are inspecting them to make sure they don't have carry any heinous diseases, have bad personal habits (like murder, drug smuggling, or destroying habitat for instance) or nasty baggage, before they are allowed to come into the country. It is the tourism companies, and every single person in NZ that benefits in some way from the 'importation' of 'sanitised' tourists that should be paying the biosecurity fees for inspecting them, and indeed they/we do, via our taxes. This surely includes anyone who works in the hospo industry, accommodation providers, bus companies, shops & all manner of people in all sorts of ways, so taxes are the best means to deal with that. But the only people to really benefit from the importation of fish, are the retailers & purchasers of those fish, so the retailers pay the costs & then pass most of the cost onto the purchasers. Simple really, imho

Hi, I have 3 sterbai corys & a bunch of guppies in a 45l tank. The cories were quite shy initially, but once I got the plants growing really thickly with only a few bare areas of gravel, and put in a couple of hollow ornaments that they can shelter inside, they got quite active and much bolder. I see them all the time weaving in and out of the plants and 'chasing' single file from one end of the tank to the other (I half wonder if that is the start of breeding behaviour?) Personally, I think that if you have your tank well planted and get one of the smaller species (panda, sterbai or similar) that should be OK.

I've finally got around to taking some photos of my bettas, after a bit of tank cleaning and moving fish around. I've got 2 'pairs' at the moment, with 1 male and 1 female being new aquisitions for Redwood Aquatics most recent import (though I was very late in getting to see them, do only got to pick between the 'left-overs' ). I like them anyway, and hope they will at least breed successfully for me. 1. HMPK male, from one marble parent. Looks a bit scruffy after an unsuccessful breeding attempt with a really nasty PK female 'Billyboy' 2 His future mate, recently purchased, HM white 'Ghost' 3 New male, Marble Dragon Crowntail, probably not the best of types but a bit of an eyecatcher anyway. From Redwoods, there were 3 like this, but he had the best top-line. 'Kingi' 4 My dumbo girl will have to do as a mate for Kingi, and will keep one of the daughters to breed back to dad, all going to plan (yeah, right!) 'Flaps' I hope to breed the Crowntail and Dumbo in the next week or 2, so fingers crossed. Both seem to be in good condition and at least are interested in each other. Will be interesting to see what the offspring look like. I expect to either cull heavily or sell lots of 'pet onlys'. Assumiong of course i get lots to choose from in the first place. :dunno:

Hi, I got a new (aka second hand off TM ) terrarium for Christmas, which I have spent today installing, and putting substrate, plants, water container, rocks etc into. Plan is to keep a pair of Green and Gold Frogs. The terrarium is 60 x 45 x 45 cm, which seems like the right size for a pair. Here are a couple of photos of what I have set up so far. The 'pond' is in a plastic container, so I can take it out and replace with a second identical container when it needs cleaning, as I don't really have to option of a full-time electricity supply for a filter for the terrarium at present. Looks a bit less than 'natural' but seems the best option for now. Should I have more 'upright' elements in the design, eg branches etc? Or is that only necessary for whistling tree frogs? The substrate is mostly sphagnum moss, with some ordinary moss, some potted plants (a fern, what I think is 2 varieties of Pothos, and climbing Ficus, plus some very small pieces of a native bog plant that will fill in around the sides and back of the pond once it grows a bit) rocks and wood. If I put some pieces of Pothos in a pot filled with hydroponic granules, would that sit in the pond and help to keep the water clean? Any helpful comments much appreciated.

I think maybe you were reading the original title 'help wid discus breeding' and assuming that the 'wid' meant 'wild', when it was actually a misspelling of 'with'. Yes??

Hi, I'm no expert on natives, but I do know genetics. A carrier (aka split) of albino usually shows no visual signs of this, but there are a lot of other genetic possibilities for a visual reduction in colour in other animals, and in fish as well. There are known genes for various forms of partial albinism (some of which are sex-linked rather than straight recessive) which could give you a paler coloured fish, as well as genes which alter or remove, to varying degrees, the non-melanin colours eg reds etc. Some genes have almost identical visual effects but are transmitted differently. Then there are environmental influences as well. It's a minefield! Really no way to know what you have until it matures, and then, if it stays an unusual colour, you get offspring from it. Good luck with it, hopefully you will have something new & different.

Hi, I would be keen on a couple, if no-one else has spoken for them, and you are happy to ship to Chch. I have a copper pk boy, and no suitable mate for him. Maybe PM me if they are still available? Thanks

Yeah, like L A says! I think you only get to have money if you don't have anything else you are passionate about. I'd be happy to pay a reasonable price for a bunch of Tads, knowing there was a risk involved. If it didn't work out, that's just life. It seems there is a fine line always between the price people will pay for a live animal, knowing the risks involved; and the price they will decide against purchase. I've bred and sold fancy-coloured mice, pedigree kittens, ponies, coloured sheep, goldfish and guinea pigs over the years and the difference between no sales and a flood of buyers can be as little as 5% of the total price. Can't explain it, must be just a psychological thing, maybe why shops price everything at however many dollars & 95 cents. :dunno: I just know I never made any profit from the above, just covered food & vet costs in a good year. :facepalm: Anyway please let us know if you do decide to breed or sell your frogs

Hi, I know this is re-activating a rather old thread, but I was wondering if anyone in Christchurch / Canty knows where I can either buy or collect lutino frogs or tadpoles. I have a large terrarium (90cm long, 45 x 45cm) waiting for whatever I can get of these. Also, interesting to read the discussion on the breeding of split to split for this gene. One aspect that I did not see mentioned is that in a lot of animals these genes which remove some or all melanin from the colouration are sex-linked. (There are other types of 'albinism' which are recessive, as well as one or two examples which are dominant with a suspected lethal factor for homozygous genotypes). Most importantly the genes for determining sex do not work the same in all classes of vertebrates. see this link - http://www.genetics.org/content/164/2/613.full The most pertinent statement here is - THE most common mechanisms of genetic sex determination are male heterogamety as designated XX female/XY male and female heterogamety as designated ZZ male/ZW female (Bull 1983). In vertebrates, the heterogametic sex is male in mammals whereas in birds it is female. The other lower vertebrates such as reptiles, amphibians, and fishes have both types; the type may differ between species or any larger taxonomic groups. In Amphibia, female heterogamety is assumed to have evolved first, because the morphologically primitive species are most commonly heterogametic in females. Male heterogamety is thought to have appeared later at certain evolutionary branching points and quite rarely to have reversed back again to females. Which if you think about it for a bit may explain the reasons some people here were finding that breeding 2 splits did not yield the expected results. If lutino offspring from a pair of splits are always male, it argues very strongly that the gene involved is sex-linked and that it is acting in an organism with male heterogamety. IE the visual lutino males have inherited just one copy of the gene from their mother, who would be heterozygous for the gene, and thus 'split' for it. Please, let me know if you can help with sources for these frogs, or any other colour morphs. Thanks

llama

SSW (its a direction)

Yeah, I drained a tank down to gravel level, left it 5 days in the middle of winter in an unheated garage. When I refilled it, 2 guppy fry from the previous inhabitants popped up out of the gravel, happy as. Tougher than we give them credit for.

Agree they are very territorial. One male to several females works best to diffuse the aggression. 2 males together today = 1 dead male tomorrow! Cinnamon is sex-linked. If neither parent is cinnamon, any cinnamon chick will be female. Cinnamon males are quite handsome, worth the trouble to breed to get them.

RNA (= ribonucleic acid)

I used to breed oodles of goldfish, and sell them to the lps, with the following set-up. 2 x old bathtubs with adult breeding stock in, spawning materials (plants, or artificial - like bunches of string/wool, nylon potscrubbers etc, almost anything non-toxic will work, goldfish aint fussy :lol: ) hung at the sloping end. Thin layer of gravel in bottom of tubs. 2 x 2-3m diameter plastic swimming pools about 50 - 70 cm deep, (cheap ones from the big red place or similar did the trick for me). Fill these with water, a few plants, and chuck in a few hand-fulls of straw, or dried grass or similar. Leave for a few weeks and the pools will go green with algae & infusoria , and then hopefully Daphnia will also show up (or go get a starter culture form somewhere). In the meantime, condition your breeding stock with plenty of good food, they should then spawn, collect as many eggs as possible & dump them straight into the green pool. When the eggs hatch, if you have timed everything right, the fry will start by munching the algae & infusoria, then the daphnia-bloom as soon as they are big enough, growing like rockets as they do. Then wean them onto flake or crumble food (if you can get hold of the crumble that they feed salmon fry in the hatcheries, that works brilliantly). Feed as much as they will eat, and start doing major water changes in your pools at least once a week at this stage - the water is going to get real messy! Water changes needed in the tubs as well of course. Once the babies are big enough, sell or select or whatever, clear out the swimming pool, refill & start all over again. This really only works for the single-tail goldfish (comets, shubunkin etc), fancy tails are better off in a tank. MOST Important: Build a framework around the ponds & tubs and cover the whole lot in shadecloth / windbreak mesh / bird netting or wire netting. But so you can still access the ponds of course. No mesh or netting = no baby (or adult) fish & really well-fed local birds & cats. :gigl: Hope that gives your friend some ideas.

Agree with the Mini Lops, little girls love them, very cute & cuddly looking. Also easy to source and not expensive. Partner's grand-daughter breeds them, and they appear fairly easy-care. Avoid the long-coated types until you are sure your girls are interested enough to spend significant time grooming them!

Hi, If it helps at all, I eventually bought a (Aqua One) Stellar 200D, which is currently running 8-10 smallish foam filters with no trouble. It is relatively quiet as well, certainly a lot quieter than the old one. I have it hung up on a hook on the wall, with a sheet of felt between it and the bare wall-boards, which seems to help with lowering the noise factor.

Love Fringe as well, proper Sci-fi. Looking forward to Extant, but have my doubts. As for the Tomorrow People, I'm almost embarrassed to say I remember watching the original English version of this series when I was a kid. The special effects would obviously look a bit cheesy now (think early-series Dr Who) but I do remember it as having a lot more character, appeal and wit than this American version, which is all just a bit too pretty-pretty and sanitised for me.

Welcome to the forum. Good luck with your tank.

+1 Maybe take the inland (aka 'Tourist') route? Or programme your Navman for 'random' :lar: It'll probably be quicker!

If you will be driving through or round Chch on a Friday anytime after 4pm (indeed, any day after 4pm) the traffic may well be at a standstill on main roads out of or into town. It would be wise to allow an extra half hour traveling time for road-work and congestion delays. :nilly:

Well, now that I have had some Bettas for a few weeks, the definitive answer to this question would appear to be - Live - Huh, what is that. Ignore Squished - Ohhh, yummy!!!! more, more, more please. Yum, gobble!! It's quite entertaining watching them deal with the crushed shell pieces, one shakes the snail to get rid of the shell, others spit the snail out several times while crushing the shell apart in their mouths. Biggest one just wolfs it down 'as-is'. But I do usually wash the largest pieces of shell off before it goes in the tank. They all look really healthy and happy on up to 4 small snails a day.

Looks like a mixture of Snakeskin and Platinum to me. With mosaic tail markings. Not anything particularly unusual or special, but if you like it, then by all means you could continue to breed them. You may find you get a mix of all-sorts in the next generation, just continue to select the colour and markings you prefer in each generation, and they may eventually be a pure-breeding line. Good Luck