Frothing at the Mouth over Flowerhorns and Other Cichlid Hybrids

I recently saw a fantastic stock of flowerhorns at an Asheville fish store. Small at two and a half inches, their coloring was already much more remarkable and defined than their natural blue acara, firemouth, and severum counterparts. I'd only seen flowerhorns full grown and in magazines so it was nice seeing them in person.

So what is this cool sounding fish called a flowerhorn?

It's a hybrid consisting of genes from two or more central and south American cichlids. I'm sure you've seen or heard of the infamous blood parrots, those pink and orange fish that look like a goldfish crossed with a parrot (actually a severum and midas or red devil cichlid, possibly with some convict parentage too). Flowerhorns were bred by the same means, a man-made fish. All this goes on over in southeast Asia at the big fish farms. They do all kinds of profitable, wacky, and gene-altering stuff over there -- splicing jellyfish genetic material into zebra danios to make them glow, breeding clown loaches, etc.

And a lot of fish hobbyists and self-proclaimed experts are freaking out about it.

Google a search on flowerhorns and you'll see what I'm talking about. They're being called "demonic" and "nightmare fish" and "abominations" made by greedy madmen "playing God" that must be destroyed. The basic argument is that by hybridizing the cichlid eventually the pure strains will get muddled, or it will be impossible to clearly identify the various species anymore. And of course another argument is the fact these hybrids can have devastating impacts on local ecosystems.

Both arguments are flawed and irrational, revealing an opinion founded on emotion more than reason.

First, you would not recognize the wild guppy from the selectively bred, colorful guppy we have today. They don't even appear to be the same species! The same goes for wild discus when compared to their neon, flashy, farm-bred and raised cousins, oscars, and a score of other popular fish that have been being selectively bred for generations now.

Why not a war on albino oscars, or fancy-tail guppies? After all, they're a freak of nature too and wouldn't survive. So why don't we cleanse the hobby of these "abominations" like so many hobbyists want to do with blood parrots and flowerhorns?

Hybridization can occur in your own home tank with the right cichlids under the right conditions (especially among convicts). There's no reason to flip out over this and start an extermination committee over the Internet. Yes, it probably wouldn't occur in nature because one fish is from central America and the other from the rivers of Brazil, but what are you doing mixing biotopes anyway... playing God over your rectangular, aquatic world?

Now onto the hybrid's impact on local ecosystems.

Of course these fish can wreak havoc in local streams and lakes, given the temperature is in their range. But how are they any different from snakeheads, African clawed frogs, and all the others people release into the wild? A few African clawed frogs can breed and fill up a lake just as fast as a school of blood parrots, and just look what cane toads have done to Australia.

Hybrids are no more at fault for harming native species than the hideous pet snakeheads people release into ponds.

Finally, look at the domestic dog. How many breeds are in the species? Is crossing a greyhound and say a lab such a disgusting, demonic abomination?

I would love to have a flowerhorn in my 180 tank but it just wouldn't work. They are incredibly aggressive fish, and although I'd have a shot at it if I had purchased one of those small ones and added him to my established tank with much larger fish, chances are as the flowerhorn matured he'd wipe everyone out one night. Of course, each fish has its own personality, and people have successfully kept flowerhorns with oscars and other large fish, given the tank is large enough, but that's just the luck of the draw.

Josh

PS Have you ever wanted a saltwater tank? Learn how you can keep a beautiful, thriving, ten gallon saltwater tank with corals here.

2/6/08 EDIT:

Commentator Lisa made some excellent points and a clarification on breeding and hybrid crossing:

Lisa wrote:

I just wanted to clarify something. The thing with those fish are they are
NOT hybrids, they are line bred. Also, you commented on crossing dog
breeds. Again, they are all DOGS (Canis familiaris), not crossbreeds. You
can't compare something like a flowerhorn to a line bred fish. They are not
the same thing. One is a hybrid, and one is still it's own species.

Thank you, Lisa, for clarifying for me. The point I was trying to make was the wild guppy is a drab minnow-looking fish while the showcase ones we see in stores are colorful with exaggerated, selectively bred fins and tails.

Cichlids are a family, not a species, so a much more appropriate example of a non-aquatic hybrid would be the mule, a cross between a donkey and horse. The mule is what's known as an F1 hybrid. Because mules are almost universally sterile (though there are rare cases of breeding!), the mule hybrid is not seen as such a threat as flowerhorns and blood parrots.