I am still wrestling with the decision to either continue or discontinue the CTDT project. I still have in my mind the image of a big, beautiful male with oodles of thick flowing tri-banded rays swirling about his long, straight body, kind of like a freshwater lionfish...but what if half of all those rays are kinked ?? There is nothing more frustrating than jarring potential males and watching their long rays kink like curly fries :(
To zoom on genealogical chart (so you can read it!) - Click on the picture to go to my photobucket page, where you can magnify it using the small magnifying glass in the bottom-right corner of the picture (TWICE). I finally took some pics of the two female CTDTs that popped out of my last CT spawn. I am relatively pleased with their form, although there is a lot to improve upon! Both females have relatively even lobes with passable division down to the peduncle. However, the edges of the caudals are rounded, which prevent them from achieving a full 180 spread. There are several short rays at the front of the dorsal that give an unattractive stair-stepping effect. However, the webbing reduction is fairly good all around. My main concern is that both of these females have minor to moderate spinal curvature and caudal peduncle bumps.
I am still wrestling with the decision to either continue or discontinue the CTDT project. I still have in my mind the image of a big, beautiful male with oodles of thick flowing tri-banded rays swirling about his long, straight body, kind of like a freshwater lionfish...but what if half of all those rays are kinked ?? There is nothing more frustrating than jarring potential males and watching their long rays kink like curly fries :(
4 Comments
Martin
12/15/2013 01:01:56 pm
Great work! Don't throw in the towel yet with ctdt project. Still lots of fun (and wins) to be had with it!
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Gianne
12/16/2013 11:10:13 am
The only thing that I really "hate" about CTs is that, despite everything., my males have consistently curled. If the males didn't curl, then I would never think about leaving this project. There is just nothing more frustrating and disappointing than jarring a promising male and having his rays curl out of control :(
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Amy Boykin
3/2/2014 03:20:29 pm
Hi Gianne. I read about the CTDT spawn on your blog, and was amazed by the similarities to my attempt. The initial spawn was a DT male and CT female; I counted about 60 free-swimming fry. They were fine for about 2 months; however, at that time I started seeing only a couple getting larger. Like your spawn, half of them are severely stunted. I also saw a few with severe deformities that looked like broken backs. Maybe there is a gene in that cross that brings this out? I don't really know. Now I am down to about 10, only 3 of which show any size- as a matter of fact they are dining on the rest (which are a good 1/4 of their size)! I guess it is back to the drawing board....*sigh*
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Very interesting experience!! I think, too, that combining these two recessive traits results in a lot of detrimental deformities. I was hoping that the thicker bodies of the DT would compensate and strengthen the notably thinner caudal peduncles of the CT, but instead it looks like the thin CT bodies made the spinal deformities of the DT much worse (because of lack of support?) I think if someone were to really work with it, though, that they could successfully remove the bad traits while strengthening the good ones. Any new form has a lot of problems - but it does seem like the CTDT has more problems than most. It is definitely frustrating sometimes lol
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