a little expert advice please..

[NONNA58]

I currently have 3 male erectus and 1 female erectus. 1 male I have had for almost 2 years and his mate died suddenly one day. I have since before her death added 3 of their offspring, which I thought was 2 females and a male. I was happy. They are currently 8 mos old. It turns out that I had 2 males and 1 female. Now I have Daddy, two male offspring, and 1 female offspring. I really did not want to have more than 2 pair in my 30g tall but I am worried that there might be too much stress on the 1 female. What should I do?
Sue

 

[Fredfish]

I have two males and a female and see competition when the female is ready to mate (a few days every month). Other than that, they seem fine.

I don't know how it would be with three males.

Fred

 

[pledosophy]

I think they will be fine together. Would worry about the inbreeding from the female to her male offspring if I read that right. Might not want to raise those fry.

 

[luvabunny]

I personally would not keep more than 3 total horses in a 30 gallon. Maybe you could trade off 1 male, and the female, for an unrelated female, then you wouldn't have to worry about the babies being too inbred. Then you would have 2 related males and an unrelated female.
If you wanted to push the envelope, trade a male and the female for 2 females, then you would have 2 unrelated pairs, however they paired up.

 

[NONNA58]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7283269#post7283269 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pledosophy
I think they will be fine together. Would worry about the inbreeding from the female to her male offspring if I read that right. Might not want to raise those fry.

The breeding would be from brother and sister and from dad and daughter. I thave never read that it was bad to breed offspring. I wish I knew that before I added the offspring to the tank.

 

[pledosophy]

It is always a bad thing to inbreed.

 

[Fredfish]

Inbreeding is not that strait forward. Is is done by many fresh water enthusiasts to get certain traits. How do you think they got pure blue discus? One generation is not an issue. Multiple generations is.

Fred

 

[NONNA58]

Thanks Fred,
I appreciate your opinion.
Sue

 

[Fredfish]

No problem.

I just looked at your 'interests' line. Dang, you got a lot of critters in your house!.

Fred

 

[NONNA58]

Yes I do. Takes me a lttle bit of time to take care of the critters before I leave for work in the morning.
Sue