Cherry Reds

Starting work on my wish list for the 350g tank. One of the species I'm looking at is the Cherry Red. According to the description they were specially bred on a fish farm in Florida. Does any body know if these are line bred or if they were mixed with something else to get this spectacular orange color?

http://bluegrassaquatics.com/pseudotropheus-sp-red-zebra-cherry-red.html

I've heard they were line bred, but that was a couple of years ago.

Line bred or not, those look awezome. As long as they don´t feed there cichlids hormons, but breed on the ones that have the best colors I think that should be okay. Most of us do it also but in a smaller scale. If we have a bunsh of fry and are keeping a few we would keep the ones that show the most promise when it comes to color and shape.

The one I had faded out to look just like every other Zebra.

I gave it to my son.

They are a line bred hybrid. Here is the history of red zebras that I know of .

Red zebra history in america follows in the mid 70 two shipments from Mozambque contained red zebras in it. The males were blue and the females were red. As I was told in the early 80's by the people that were in this since the early 70's is that one or two O males had poped out of some of the wild imports. The demand started for O male ,But they could not get any shipments out of Mozambque due to a civil war. They have found other populations of Zebras that had O morphs. Now as I was told the people collecting on the lake at that time were not the most honest people. This is before Grant became the main player on the lake. If I'm not mastaken it was after the Davies. Peter and his wife or Richard Furzer I'm almost it was the latter. We they were taking these o morph fish that were not from Minos reef ( At that time know one knew where red zebras came from ,Just mozambuque ) Any who's. The O males were rare but the comenend a high price 100 wholesale. In time we had found out that all those red males were not the same location as the first red zebras. Also white colbolts were sold as red males ,not the pearl white the non pearl whites .This was not by importers but by so caled repituble people.selling to hobbiest/breeders. Remember the thinking was all zebras were the same fish just different colors because they came from different localitys in the lake. Someone had crossed a rusty cichlid cichlid ( the purple phaze ) to the red zebras. This cross inhanced the red/orange pigment. they were called Red Anni. In wild Esthera they are a florescent red/orange color. This color fades to a light orange color in the indoor enviorment. with out a strong color food. These hybrids did not loose their color. When these females were bred back to O males some of the O males instead of being pink wre deep red orange like the males. The new was coined Chrimson red. The quickly became all the rage and the FlL. farms were soon to become the leaders in the production of this new hybrid at this time. they also bred this strain to the albino zebra to produce the albino red zebra. ( not the one in the hobby today. These were bred to produce the deepest red on red fish and the name Chreey red was coined this hybird was applyed to the rare Ob phaze, Called the orange blossom zebra. The red ob or Orange blossm has a small muttled pattred of a blueish blotch. Un like most OB females that have a brown or black blotch. Now you had the color of the orange blossem to the chrimson zebra. These were crossed to the pinto Zebra, also known in this country as pinto or Mozambque zebra. That was a zebra that had deep black blotches they were in block form and males came in were white with black blotches females had a cream to a white backround with big black blotches, notic I dont say spots or mottleing. This pattren was known as Big Block. So at this time pure reds were few and far between. only a few peoplw had them as time went on none were pure any more you hardly seen them. All the red ob's no longer had the same orange color to them, nor did they have the mottled blueish pattren but big black blotches . Now there is a albino Red OB that I have no idea how it was delveloped all I know is it breed with reds zebras and it has bigblocks . It is a mutt.) I feel is is Hypomelanistic and not albino.

Example of a pure red ob


It was not untill S Grant found one of the native fishaman that caught the red zebras with the orignal collector. Knew where the locality was. Grant tried for a long time to find the population. Any how They starting importing the true fish . The first shipments contaned fist from another locality of red zebras Chiluchia. They were not as nice by far . then the minos reef population came in . Now I know old world got a hold of the first shipmenmts from minos reef. They stocked pure ones. but most farms just took wild females and bred them to their old stock O and big block males. Some hobbiest also did the same and tried to pass thes fish off as F1 fish. So there you go. no shipmnts in over 4 years till 2009. How many pure fish you think that are out ther compared to all the farmed raised mutts on the market

heck I kept most of the 1's you mentioned . loved the pinto zebra's .

vman wrote:heck I kept most of the 1's you mentioned . loved the pinto zebra's .

Yep old school fish rocked, I wish I know the locality of the pinto all I know they came from Mozambique