Photo: A male Hifin Redwag Swordtail. I’m beginning a blog series on introducing new genes (technically alleles, but I’ll bow to common usage) into a xiphophorine population. In this blog I’ll discuss the mechanics of introducing a single dominant gene into a xiphophorine population. By the way, ... Read More
Breeding
Labidochromis caeruleus ‘Gold’
Photo: A male Labidochromis caeruleus ‘Gold’ or ‘Lemon Yellow Lab.’ We raise a lot of African cichlids, especially those from Lake Malawi in East Africa. One of these is very popular with our aquarium maintenance customers due to its bright yellow coloration. This species is Labidochromis ... Read More
Red Freckled Hifin Swordtail
Photo: A first generation Red Freckled Hifin Swordtail male in front of one inch grid to show size. Okay, it’s going to take a while to untangle the genealogy of this fish. Let’s take the female first. The pictured female is large. She's in front of a one-inch grid that shows she almost ... Read More
Giant Marble Liberty Molly Update
Photo: Our current Giant Marble Liberty Molly breeder male. I originally wrote about this fish in May, 2015 (see my blog http://goliadfarms.com/giant-marble-liberty-mollies/). We have now gone through a couple of additional generations so I’m providing an update on the status of this molly ... Read More
Giant Redtail Blue Variatus Update
Photo: Our breeding male Giant Redtail Blue Variatus and one of his females. The two smaller fish are mature Redtail Blue Variatus. A while back I wrote about a new strain of fish we were developing (see: http://goliadfarms.com/giant-redtail-blue-variatus/). This blog gives a mixed bag of ... Read More
A Gambusia from Big Bend, a New Species?
Photo is a female Gambusia collected in August/September in the Big Bend region of Texas. The author hopes it's a new species. In August and September of 2012 I took two trips out to the Big Bend region of Texas. The first trip was with a daughter, Cara, and a son-in-law, Ky. Ky is the husband of ... Read More
Dragon Blood Peacock Cichlid Genetics
Photo: A mature male Red Dragon Blood Peacock Cichlid. A while back I set up a cross between a Red Dragon Blood Cichlid male and some Protomelas taeniolatus ‘Sunshine’ females. That’s him in the photo above. By the way, the grid behind him is in inches, showing how large he is. The Sunshine ... Read More
Canary OB Peacock
Photo: A very young (about four months old) male Canary OB Peacock. By the way, while the grid behind him shows one-inch squares, he is not six inches long. He's at the front of the aquarium and the grid is at the back. He's actually only four inches long, barely large enough to reliably determine ... Read More
Orange OB Peacock
Photo: One of our two current male breeder Orange OB Peacock Cichlids. We just processed our Orange OB Peacock Cichlids. For a discussion of the development of this and other strains of peacock cichlids, see http://goliadfarms.com/our-peacock-cichlids/. I did a very tight selection on this ... Read More
Blue Iridescent Swordtail
Photo: An early male Blue Iridescent Swordtail used in the development of the strain. We raise a variety of commercial swordtails. While these fish closely resemble the shape of the wild swordtail Xiphophorus hellerii, they are hybrid strains with genes from other Xiphophorus species such as X. ... Read More