Gold Rams, Cross Breeding and Hormones

[pamc]

I have a question about breeding and gold rams.
Most gold rams from suppliers are from the large fish farms and it is rumored they use hormones to control reproductively to of course corner the market and control the supply.

So if the hormones are used is it the male or female that is reproductively damaged.
It has been suggested the males are damaged.
Makes sense as one male gold ram I have has been partnered with three different females (two golds and a blue) and no fry.

If this the hormone affects the male gold only, I could breed a gold female with a Blue male and expect fry, right.
Now those fry I would expect to come out color morphed as Blue, however could I take a male blue fry (once grown) and pair with another female gold and expect some gold fry?

How much crossing back would need to happen to get a gold fry? Hoping some of you selective guppy breeders might have an answer.

[Carl]

I honestly do not know if hormones are used to control the market/supply.

What I do know is that a method known as hypophysation utilizes the hormones from the pituitary gland to induce ovulation of the eggs and milt in fish farming practices for about three decades and that I have not read of any ill effects from this process (referencing .edu sites, not aquarium sites).

As to the gold female and blue male, my understanding is that the gold is a recessive gene (I do not know this for a fact), so a cross would likely produce 1 in 4 as gold if at all, but the next generation may have more if bred again (maybe 1 out of 2)

Carl

[pamc]

Thanks Carl, “selective breeding” is above my head but thank you for the simple explanation. Your are right about the Gold Ram having the recessive gene, the German Blue Ram having the dominate gene and it may be F1 being cross back to another different GR (do not want to much inbreeding) before I see fry with the gold coloring.

In my research of “breeding rams” (mostly hobbyist sites), I have read much about GBR and EBR (Electric Blue rams, newer to the hobby then GRs) successful breeding and cross breeding, but I have yet to find a successful breeding of Gold Rams posted by a hobbyist, other than spawns.

I found this strange. This has lead me to wonder why? Hormones? If so, which sex is affected or is it both?

This post is not meant to condemn the use of hormones in the hobby or fish farms as they are useful tools in most cases. This post was rather to talk out loud how to selectively breed a fish and any possible reasons why there is so little info on the subject of breeding the Gold Ram. You Carl, have at least given me a road map, if I can get a GR to spawn successfully with a GBR.

Oh I feel MTS coming on, again.

[bikeguy33]

i don`t agree about golds being "sterililized"!! they , at least in Canada, are the most common rams available. they may be sterilized there, but here seem pretty prolific and at a great price (under $10)!

[pamc]

Agreed the rams are inexpensive as the price is similar here in the USA. Our suppliers seem to get the rams (any color morph) in spurts though, perhaps there are some successful GR breeders in Canada.

I have read some color morphs or hybrids (hybrids are a whole different subject) of other species have had issue with reproduction as well and wonder out loud is there a connection?

My male GR has spawned just about every two weeks, I originally hoped that he was going through the learning curve, but he has the spawning rock care down pat.

I may take the eggs next time and place in a incubator as Curtis showed in his thread, just to see if the eggs are fertile. My concern here is I will have a learning curve on artificially hatching eggs, so I may have to do this several times before making a decision on whether or not he is shooting blanks.