Hybrid GBA/Common Bristlenose Discussion

[SpidersWeb]

They'll sleep under a log no worries. I wouldn't stress about it.

They love wood caves though. I have a fantastic one lying around I forgot to give away if anyone needs one locally.

[David R]

Obviously if you're buying from the LFS you can't be sure where the fish have come from, although sometimes you can ask if they're locally bred or imported. The best bet is to grow a group out to adults and pick the best ones.

I'm not 100% clued up on the whole GBA/bristlenose thing, but if they are the same SPECIES, and the GBA is just a seletively bred VARIETY, then inter-breeding them isn't as big a problem as many think. The only downside is that you could be "polluting" the GBA line with 'normal' genes, and decreasing the chance of having more GBA offspring.

As for breeding brothers and sisters, in some cases its good, sometimes its bad, it depends what you're after. Johannes had an interesting post about line breeding not so long ago, which had discussion about it. My view is that if you're line breeding as long as you're monitoring the offspring for defects, and adding new blood when and if possible then its not a problem. If you're just breeding a species (as opposed to a selected colourstrain) then genetic variation is a good thing, and if you can avoid breeding brothers and sisters then you should do so.