# platy genetics- input needed



## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

Over the past 5 plus years I have been breeding my platies to maintain my own stocks. it has been a long time since I added an outside male and so sibs are reproducing togehter. I have read that platies are used in research because of their hardiness and the fact that they have very few genetic problems with repeated inbreeding.
So my last batch of fry managed to make it to 2 months then 50% died off rather suddenly.
the only tank mate was a sword fry of the same age.
I cannot decide if they died because of harrassment from the sword( not seen) or if they had something genetically wrong. From the eye view they did not have any external deformities.
I have noted when platy tales are too oval they usually die young but this was not a problem that I could see.
Any ideas about how often you can interbreed sibs and not get probs??


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

I'm not sure how many generations you can carry it on, but I know how breeders avoid it. You get 2 tanks. Even if you start out with siblings breeding, you break them into two groups, A & B. You breed only As to As for 1-3 generation and Bs to Bs. Then you stop and breed only As to Bs, divide the fry and start again. In other words, every couple of generation, you force a non-sibling breeding. Line breeders will breed siblings and even father to daughter, but they know to break it up occasionally.

If all the fry died around the same time, I would suspect a water quality issue before genetics. Only if the fry died at the same age in different tanks or from different "litters" at the same age would I blame genetics first. The strategy of multiple breeding groups protects you from tank-crashes as well as fatal genetic problems (if As croak, start over from Bs).


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

interesting.
I think the simplest thing for me is to buy a new male every once in a while. I am getting really bored with red wags. I do have a couple of gold offspring from a male 2 years ago and a few orange ones now but it seems like a good time to kick in a new strain.
maybe go to the yellow and blacks for a while.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

buying new males works, too. Call it outcrossing. But quarantine him or you could lose them all.


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## Guest (Jun 30, 2009)

i like EMC's idea of a new males. thats pretty much what i did with my guppys. started with a half jacket male and a turquise green tail female = off spring: half jacket green tail female. culled the rest. had her for 4 months, bred her with a endler looking half tail male: ofspring = endler looking, half jacket, green tail fry. 

four of them are showing BRILLIANT blotches of purples, blue and red along the front half, a black jacket rear half, running to the centre of the tail, surrounded with turqoise green fan tail fin, with black stripes running through. the females are slowing showing color now. all fry from batch one are sexable by now.


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