I have four angelfish. I have just noticed something different about one of their tails. Three of them have tails like this:
http://www.corbisimages.com/images/67/54 ... one has a tail like this:
http://www.bbayaquariums.com/angelfish.j ... I bought them all at my local fish shop. The three with the forked tails were in a tank labeled "assorted angelfish" with maybe 30 small angelfish in it. The one without the forks was sharing a tank with a small oscar, and was two dollars more expensive than the other angelfish because he was sold as a "black angelfish" (normally I wouldn't pay two dollars more for color, but he was the angelfish that originally caught my eye, I wanted him, and got a few more angelfish so he could have a school).
I would say that maybe the three just have undeveloped veil tails, but they weren't sold under the premise of veil tail and they were less expensive than the other anyway. So, is there a technical term for this difference?
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com Also, I know that he was sold as a "black angelfish" but I was wondering if he is just a black angelfish or if he's a black lace angelfish. He looks just like this fish:
http://www.funfishtank.com/wp-content/up ... only his eyes aren't quite that red.
He looks like a nice regular finned black angel. If the shop was keeping it with an small oscar then one could speculate that the shop was 1. ) really hurting for space and 2) gambling that compared to other angels blacks are such a hot item that it would sell before the oscar roughed it up. Kudos for rescuing it.
Angelfish genetics is quite a large area of study. A useful introduction is referenced below. I might go to FINS and look for more if really interested in it.
Your purchases from the assorted angels tank reminded me of a conversation with a guy who bred and raised a lot of angelfish that he sold to independent shops and took to a variety of fish club auctions and swap meets. He noted that while we all knew that each breeder had two sets of chromosomes and that each chromosome carried a bunch of genes, that sometimes a couple of genes were responsible for a trait. Sometimes one trait would be dominant over another trait. Other times there would be an incomplete dominance factor and so the fish would show something between the two traits.
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com He has had several of his breeding angelfish though several generations and could give general odds on percentages that a certain pair's fry would be a certain color and fin length as opposed to other combinations. But he couldn't be 100% sure what would develop.
And he was doing some pretty specialized work to develop a blue angel. Even now blue angels are bluish, usually with a blue wash. See the second two sources below.
Black angelfish have a reputation for being a little slower growing than others and more fragile. And so they are usually raised separately from other angelfish fry. And sometimes adults are a little more feisty than others - go figure.
If you aren't interested in breeding angels over generations, you may snag something that grows up to be really interesting from the assorted angels tank. That would be a tricky place to select breeders for line breeding though.
By the way, breeding a male and female "pure" veil tail should produce those long tails. (Knock on wood.)
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com
If you thought that aquarists trying to breed black angelfish have it hard ...
Betta breeders have long struggled to breed black Bettas. Often it is hard to breed because one will either be sterile or there may be a "lethal gene" factor where the fry die somewhere along the line. Usually a black is bred to a Bettas . I remember visiting a breeder in Anderson, IN who was producing some neat blacks, but he always crossed a black out to another line. That in part would account for their relative rarity and higher auction prices.
The following is quoted from a forum known for pretty good discussions on many fishy topics. It illustrates what some Betta breeders do to in order In order to achieve black spawns, that writer contends that one must do that out-crossing too.
"Male melano (black) Bettas are fertile, but it is females that express the black coloration that are sterile. One must breed a black male to a steel blue female with melano genes.
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com
The genetics involved in some areas of the hobby force breeders to take their hobby or craft to a whole 'nother level.
Oscars are bright (for a fish). "Little oscar" was smart enough to not antagonize something a whole lot bigger. But if and when he grew up ...
