A number of years ago I bought a pair of Innidere which were the Best of Show fish at a WAKO annual show.  After 4-5 generations and no possible incidence of accidental hybridization, I have two female varieties of this fish.  One the normal grey with some red spots, and another which is solid gold.  Both female forms are fertile and are structured the same...  In all cases there are no variance differences in the males, all the same finnage, size, color, pattern no differences.

I am seeking experience of others to determine if anyone has observed similar anomalies.  Please let me know via this thread on your experiences with this species of gardneri similar or not.

Thanks in advance and have a great fall.

Jim Langan, AKA Webmaster

Personally not in my experience, but have heard many anecdotes about 'sports' in killifish, which is what you have. At least one (which Rosario La Corte might've mentioned in his recent book) talks about a golden Chrom. riggenbachi starting with a yellow female and yielding a really interesting line of many different color forms over many generations - males with blue fins, gold fins, gold bodies, ... I believe the current 'gold gardneri' was a nigerianus sport, too, line bred to lock in the mutation, but don't know if it started with a female.

Thanks Matt,

Good information to know.  I'll watch the numbers on how many and more closely which parents.  It definitively is a recessive gene and it most likely can be replicated by line breeding.  I'll start raising the fry separately.

Langan

I've had "xanthistic" fish pop up on occasion, most often in cichlids, danios or other fish that produce many thousands of fry.  In killies, I saw a few in Fp. garderi Misaje many years ago, and some N. guentheri more recently.  I raised quite a few generations of Innidere without ever spotting one.

I think it's a genetic "sport" that just pops up once in a while (like albinism), and unless the breeder goes out of his way to support them, it probably naturally fizzles out in the next couple of generations.  If it's recessive, the fastest route to getting a strain established should be breeding one of the sons back to it's mother.