Black Traditional PK 072914

Spawn 072914

Black traditional PK by Josip Kevari (Croatia)

Black traditional PK by Andrea Topo Queirolo (Italy)

In light of the loss of the previous spawn (sigh), I am going to try this male again with another female. I am really excited for this cross. The female is from Andrea Topo Quierolo (Italy) and is related to Josip Kevari's (Croatia) blacks, since they both descend from Peter Baerwald's line. This female has superior form to the other females I received, and is an even black throughout with some iridescence. Her caudal is a ful 180 (although she does not like to show it very often) with only primary branching. She also has a very long body, although her caudal peduncle could be stronger, and she does have a large gap between the dorsal and the caudal. The male is quite nice - I love his velvet black color, long body, and tapering anal point! Removing the iridescence is going to be a primary goal with this line, as well as reducing the branching in the caudal down to primary.

Back-up brother to the sire. He reminds me of the more traditional fighters! I am actually a big fan of the red/black butterfly pattern, even though in the show it would be faulted for low contrast. Josip said that about half of the spawn had the butterfly pattern and half did not.

Another shot of daddy :)

Update 092914

I (and several others) have found that these blacks grow EXTREMELY slowly. I also had some major die-off for unknown reasons. I decided to cull this spawn since they were so behind in development. I am not sure if it was my fry rearing techniques or the fact that blacks are inherently difficult to raise. I am not sure if I will be pursuing black traditional plakats - I am currently inclined to focus more on my CTPKs and my red/yellow traditional plakats. Running two parallel lines in two different forms/colors  in one small fish room is tough!