Ken Kennedy fry another update

Just thought i would give an update on the young fish. Really coming on well showing fantastic color and finnage. These are some of the fish i kept back for potential breeders.
Thanks Dave
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Hi Dave
Nice pics but what are you thinking of crossing them with, dont think you can get the dorsal and anal fin any
wider, and the blue is very nice. so you must be going for the colour cross. now i have some of your fish i can have a play crosing them with some of my own stock.
cheers tony

You have great finnage on those Dave.

Hi Dave,
The dorsal on that one fish is spectacular, but despite what Tony says.....

dont think you can get the dorsal and anal fin any wider

I think you can :-

http://angelfishkisses.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5082&d=1264238338

That fish was the father of all the blue and pinoy angels that came to the UK.
At the time Ken said that the fish he was sending were quite inbred and he suggested that it would be good to out cross them. I'm not sure from your thread on the parents http://www.uk-angelfishforum.org.uk/t254-new-batch-of-young#2066
if their parents are also siblings. In that thread you state....

These are from a pair the grandparents of which are supossed to be Ken Kennedy strain.

If they are siblings, and their parents were siblings, and both grandparents were from the original shipment, unless one of the blues/pinoys was mated to one of Kens platimums (which were apparently only distantly related to the blues & pinoys sent) then you're looking at quite serious levels of inbreeding.
In short, I would certainly be looking to find something unrelated to outcross them to!

It may be the camera angle, but I find the difference in shape between the two fish (I'm assuming that all but the first photo are of the same fish) very interesting, especially in comparison to their Great Great Great Grandfather.
Ken's fish were certainly spectacular, and when I first saw them in the flesh I was stunned by the colouration, but in truth, I was a little disappointed by the shape. I like angels which have a tall body profile, preferably as tall or even taller than they are long and with a smooth profile, so if you cut all the fins off you'd end up with something roughly circular, but with a bit of a triangular point on one side where the mouth is, and opposite that a little tapper to the tail.
The body of Kens fish does have quite smooth contours, but the back is very flat, giving the body a slight lemon shape, it's even more obvious in this fish, one of his daughters....



Many of Ken's fish seem to have quite pronounced head humps, which make the long back even more prounounced.
They also seem to have long flat bellies, between the anal and ventral fins, this feature too, seems to exagerate the lemon like shape.

My avatar is the son of one of Ken's fish mated to a gold angel with a pb gene, it's body shape is close to my ideal, not too long a snout, smooth rounded back, deep body, and the belly between the ventral and anal fins is not too long, and slopes gently downwards.


Up to now I believed that the long flat back and lemon shaped body was the trade off that had to be made if you wanted wifi fins. However, your second fish gives the lie to that belief. The nose is a little too long and pointed for my taste, but overall it's a beautiful and spectacular fish.

To be honest, I'm not so keen on the first fish, the long nose in particular is not to my taste.

I have to say you did a good job on capturing both the colours and the finnage in your photos, I don't have any with such spectacular fins, but in general, when I do try to get a shot with the fins flared, they refuse to co-operate!.

Thanks everyone for your comments.

TONY
QUOTE now i have some of your fish i can have a play crosing them with some of my own stock.
cheers tony
The fish you have are not from the same parents as these ( although they are very nice fish)

ROB
Thanks for your comments.
Yes i have noticed in the brood there are two distint shapes . 90% are like the parents , picture below. As you say showing a lemon shape. But the other 10% are showing much taller shape and much wider finnage. Of the twenty or so i kept back i have about 5 showing this trait. (Im hoping they will get better with age as they are only 5 1/2 months old.)
I agree they now need to be crossed out to somthing BUT WHAT???
I would like to retain the WiFi if possible but also the blue. What i would realy like to produce are some WIFI Blue Zebras

These are the genetics of their grandparents (as given to me when i bought their Parents)
Female Parent: Sm/+ - Z/+ - +/g - pb/pb. Ken Kennedy
Male Parent: Sm/+ - Z/+ - pb/pb. Ken Kennedy
So there is zebra in there
As for the photography and fish showing their finnage
They are in a tank with another bonded pair who are preparing to spawn and i think these fish are just starting to flex their wings so to speak and a little bit of showing off was coming in to play so i took the opertunity.
Thanks Dave

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Hi guys, all fantastic fish!
I just want to know a bit about the photography though.
Every time I try to get a shot it is a little blurred, the colours never seem true and there are often shadows and light reflections from the tank.
What do you do to get these excellent shots?
I would post one of mine for you to see if I could work out how to do it, so maybe someone could do an idiots guide to fish photography and to posting the pics on here ?

Otherwise I will just keep looking at your fish and wishing.

Cheers, Bob.

In terms of how to post a picture see my post at the top of page 2 in this thread....
http://www.uk-angelfishforum.org.uk/t304p15-manacapuru-angels#2532

As to how to take a good, or at least reasonable, there's a few tips near the bottom of this thread...
http://www.uk-angelfishforum.org.uk/t215-yet-more-of-my-photos

HTH

Hi Dave,
Nearly overlooked your post....

If you look at the horizontal bands (striations) in the dorsal fins of the parents, you'll notice that the female, nearest the camera, has clearly defined bands, but the male, when he opens his fins, has more bands, closer together and in some cases breaking up and running vertically. Compare the dorsal of this fish without a zebra gene


to this one which has a zebra gene

I agree they now need to be crossed out to somthing BUT WHAT???
I would like to retain the WiFi if possible but also the blue. What i would realy like to produce are some WIFI Blue Zebras

In part that's going to depend on what other fish you have available to work with.
Zebra is a dominant gene, so crossing a fish with the zebra gene to a silver would produce some zebras, unless you happen to choose a fish which is homozygous for (has two copies of) smokey. A fish with two copies of smokey is called a chocolate (The top photo in this post is a blue chocolate, the bottom a blue smokey zebra, aka blue leopard - compare the extent of the smokey markings in the two)
The Philippine blue gene on the other hand is recessive so unless you cross to a fish with at least one Philippine blue gene, it will be two generations before you get a blue zebra.

The wifi finnage is less well understood, but might be controlled by a number of genes and possibly influenced by environmental factors too. In short, the best you can do with wifi, is select those fish with the widest fins to breed from.

So assuming you don't have a suitable blue fish to hand and start with a cross to a silver. You then need to select two of their offspring to breed from, or you can breed back to the parent. By the time you've re-established the wifi it will almost be time to outcross again.
The way to overcome this is to do the work twice. Start two, or more lines, and run them parallel for several generations until you have, hopefully, good blue zebra wifi's in each line. Then when you mate fish from one line with fish from the other, you eliminate most of the inbreeding and retain the appearance you've been working towards.

One thing to watch with zebra is that homozygous fish (fish with two copies of the gene) are reputed to be much slower growing than heterozygous fish (fish with only one copy of the gene) so if you want to produce 100% zebras, you're best to mate a homozygous fish to a silver, that way all the youngsters will be the faster growing heterozygous zebras.

Pearlscale is also recessive, so if you want to retain pearlscale, crossing to a fish with at least one pearlscale gene will help.

Obviously, whilst crossing to a wildtype silver and then re-establishing your line is one option, finding yourself a good quality, unrelated or only distantly related blue, would be far preferable. I'm sure if you haven't got such a fish, Lisa would have!

Thanks Rob
I JUST HAPPEN TO HAVE a totally unrelated Blue silver (grandfather was a wild) female fish to use so fingers crossed for the future.
Dave

Sounds good, I'm sure you'll keep us updated on progress!