Redtail catfish mixed with Lima catfish

[jjohnwm]

It's less offensive if these creations were prompted by the need/want to produce a better/faster-growing/somehow superior fish to be used as a food source in areas where such is needed. I admit I hadn't even thought of that. I simply assumed it was another step taken by the mentality behind goldfish that can't see, swim or eat properly, or stunted misshapened "short-bodied" specimens of many species.

 

[necrocanis]

I've poured over so many documents on hybrid catfish. What amazes me more is how easily catfish hybridized with species well outside of their own genera. I believe that one should be very careful in this practice. Especially in the native waters where the fish originate from. Our fish worldwide struggle enough without having to compete with hybrids or introduced species.

I have kept many catfish hybrids. I do agree that these are seldom seen and likely do not have a high survivability rate. That being said it favors a Lima heavily and I'd provide it the same care as one for the most part. It is interesting for sure. I'd bank on it being able to get a bit larger than a Lima but not monster sized. Best guess would be 20-30" max.

Please provide updates if bought/kept so we can all learn from this one.

Btw another interesting thing is for the most part these were experimented with on fish farms in South America. Many different pimelodid catfishes were mixed and evaluated for growth and carcass yield. We do the same with our fish in North America as well. Channel Catfish are routinely mixed with Blue(Fulton) Catfish and the offspring released into the wild.

The process is not so straight forward though. Unlike breeding the same species together hybrids can be tricky. Each of the parent species may in fact spawn at different times. Makes are tough to get to produce Milt when it's not time for mating. Therefore a lot of times the males are sacraficed when the females are ready. They cut out the testes and pulverizes them straight from the live fish. They mix it with a certain solution to activate the sperm. Once activated and viewed under magnification the females are stripped of eggs and combined with the sperm. Yields are usually much less with hybrids.

Another method I've heard of is to inject a single sperm cell into the egg cell. Again this is tricky with fish because each egg only has one opening for one sperm cell. So under magnification you must find a healthy sperm then find the opening on the egg and inject before cellular death occurs. This is a good way to make hard to produce fish or hybrids.

Although the hybrids were produced initially for food many of the ones in our hobby actually come from Asia. There are fish farms there that specialize in making hybrids of South American catfishes. I've actually corresponded with them in the past and they sent me their techniques. They are very crude but obviously work. They usually sacraficed both fish after doping them with hormones for weeks to induce an artificial breeding response. None of these species would likely ever interbreed in the wild.

Not sure if this is just rambling but thought I'd share a little. I actually do hope the fish survives well into adulthood so that we can view it and learn from it.

One last not is the fish may do better with some Lima Shovelnose tankmates. I'd make sure to get some larger ones incase this one surpasses them.

 

[FINWIN]

Redtail Cat - 5 feet

Sorubim lima - 2 feet

Therefore, Redtail X Lima = 5 X 2 = 10 Feet

Get a big tank. Next question?

LOL that's like 3 + 3 = 33!

 

[jjohnwm]

^ Not at all! The hybrid fish is described as Redtail X Lima, not Redtail + Lima.

 

[FINWIN]

How are these things created? Are the eggs and sperm manually stripped off the adult fish and then mixed together, like they do for salmon? And...why? Most of these critters are not nearly as attractive as either parent; is this just another case of "...because I can!"?????




Glad I'm not the only one who feels this way...

I made a comment on another hybrid thread with the same opinion. Some of these fish have no purpose, not particularly attractive or so generic and bland it's like "what's the point?" They look like a mutt of nothing with unappealing body shape, weird heads or a mishmash of colors/patterns.

Like dovii/jag. Okay, and...what?

Can I mix a giraffe with a gorilla? How bout an earthworm with a snake head? COOL!!!!!

 

[FINWIN]

I've poured over so many documents on hybrid catfish. What amazes me more is how easily catfish hybridized with species well outside of their own genera. I believe that one should be very careful in this practice. Especially in the native waters where the fish originate from. Our fish worldwide struggle enough without having to compete with hybrids or introduced species.

I have kept many catfish hybrids. I do agree that these are seldom seen and likely do not have a high survivability rate. That being said it favors a Lima heavily and I'd provide it the same care as one for the most part. It is interesting for sure. I'd bank on it being able to get a bit larger than a Lima but not monster sized. Best guess would be 20-30" max.

Please provide updates if bought/kept so we can all learn from this one.

Btw another interesting thing is for the most part these were experimented with on fish farms in South America. Many different pimelodid catfishes were mixed and evaluated for growth and carcass yield. We do the same with our fish in North America as well. Channel Catfish are routinely mixed with Blue(Fulton) Catfish and the offspring released into the wild.

The process is not so straight forward though. Unlike breeding the same species together hybrids can be tricky. Each of the parent species may in fact spawn at different times. Makes are tough to get to produce Milt when it's not time for mating. Therefore a lot of times the males are sacraficed when the females are ready. They cut out the testes and pulverizes them straight from the live fish. They mix it with a certain solution to activate the sperm. Once activated and viewed under magnification the females are stripped of eggs and combined with the sperm. Yields are usually much less with hybrids.

Another method I've heard of is to inject a single sperm cell into the egg cell. Again this is tricky with fish because each egg only has one opening for one sperm cell. So under magnification you must find a healthy sperm then find the opening on the egg and inject before cellular death occurs. This is a good way to make hard to produce fish or hybrids.

Although the hybrids were produced initially for food many of the ones in our hobby actually come from Asia. There are fish farms there that specialize in making hybrids of South American catfishes. I've actually corresponded with them in the past and they sent me their techniques. They are very crude but obviously work. They usually sacraficed both fish after doping them with hormones for weeks to induce an artificial breeding response. None of these species would likely ever interbreed in the wild.

Not sure if this is just rambling but thought I'd share a little. I actually do hope the fish survives well into adulthood so that we can view it and learn from it.

One last not is the fish may do better with some Lima Shovelnose tankmates. I'd make sure to get some larger ones incase this one surpasses them.

I found out recently that a lot of the synodontis catfishes are hybridized deliberately, angelicus is most used for this purpose.

 

[necrocanis]

I found out recently that a lot of the synodontis catfishes are hybridized deliberately, angelicus is most used for this purpose.

Yes synodontis catfish may be the most heavily hybridized catfish.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

I probably should add to my prior post is that the reason behind this hybrid not making a commercial production at the SA fish farms may have another explanation alternative and/or additional to poor viability, which is the poor carcass yield Cliff mentions, that is it doesn't grow fast enough and big enough to be successfully marketable. So a chance remains that this hybrid might be more or less viable. I don't think we know why it hasn't been commercialized, if anyone knew, it'd be Cliff.

Synodontis have been hybridized so much for purely ornamental fish trade and the main driving force I believe was and remains profits. Their goal appears to be to create hybrids (cheaply) that resemble genuine syno species as close as possible.

FINWIN not criticizing you but trying to understand: but your avatar is a manmade hybrid fish, a blood parrot, is it not?

 

[FINWIN]

I probably should add to my prior post is that the reason behind this hybrid not making a commercial production at the SA fish farms may have another explanation alternative and/or additional to poor viability, which is the poor carcass yield Cliff mentions, that is it doesn't grow fast enough and big enough to be successfully marketable. So a chance remains that this hybrid might be more or less viable. I don't think we know why it hasn't been commercialized, if anyone knew, it'd be Cliff.

Synodontis have been hybridized so much for purely ornamental fish trade and the main driving force I believe was and remains profits. Their goal appears to be to create hybrids (cheaply) that resemble genuine syno species as close as possible.

FINWIN not criticizing you but trying to understand: but your avatar is a manmade hybrid fish, a blood parrot, is it not?

True. I have no issues with hybrids, I'm not a 'purist' that way. Some are beautiful, some variable, some ugly. My thing is have a purpose to it, not just mashing fish species together to see if its "cool." I can kind of see both sides of the fence on this. If the fish is healthy, viable and has good form no problem.

I had a beautiful synodontis Spike that was a hybrid, but he jumped quarantine weeks ago.

 

[fishdance]

From a commercial fish breeders perspective, artificial hybrid true to type lines are most definitely a very positive goal. If these can't be sourced from other fish breeders and become popular, it's essentially a monopoly. Even if they can be sourced from other fish breeders, these don't have to compete with wild caught sources which can be very cheap and unsustainable. The mortality rate of wild caught fish is sickening. More and more efforts are also going towards producing sterile hybrids which again is good for commercial fish breeders and particularly good for the environment as many unwanted fish are ignorantly released.

So without taking sides in the purist - hybrid debate, the "green" aspects of hybrids should be heavily prompted as fish keeping as a hobby is very much in the target sights of many animal activist groups. Perhaps rightly so.

I don't think there is anything wrong with commercial fish breeders wanting to make profit. And of course, some hybrids take many many years to develop. I do highlight the distinction between commercial fish breeding and a backyard hobbyist who simply crosses two species and calls this a developed line.

By the way. Hormone inducement is far from easy in most cases and requires a high degree of fish keeping skill and experience as brood stock must be in prime healthy condition for success. In the case of synodontis, the males have corkscrew like testes which makes manual stripping of milt almost impossible. However with some skill, it's possible to remove part of one of the testes with keyhole surgery rather than sacrificing the whole fish. Use superglue to cateruse and suture. This fish will recover and regrow the teste.

From my experience, some broodstock conditioned to artificially spawn tend to respond more and more easily, occasionally even spawning without inducement and/ or triggering some of the other same species brood stock to spawn a the the same time.