DNA sexing

colby

In Memoriam
I had a strange idea the other day and wanted to know what y'all thought...

I had my parrot DNA sexed and it was a relatively cheap process, so I was thinkinkg why not fish? I figured this techique could be very helpful in attempting to setup pairs like triggers and tangs or butterflyfish for example...

Obviously there would be the issue of getting the blood without hurtung the fish too much, however I am sure with a hypodermic needle a tiny drop of blood could be extacted from a meaty part of a fish with no long term effects....

What do you guys think about this idea?
 
Collecting blood is no big issue even in quite small fishes as long long as the volume you need and the volume you can collect match. 0,7 to 1 % of body weigth can be collected from most vertebrates.
The main problem can reside on knowing the DNA part that tells males from females for sure.
Anderson.
 
Interesting idea. So what kind of cost was the parrot DNA test? The first service I found online was about $20....

A LOT of fish species can be sexed or at least relatively easily paired already...i.e. I don' think I'd need a bloodtest to select a pair of even the rarest of Genicanthus Angels. Tangs? With the amount of space required for breeding I'm sure I could house a group of them, having no worries about having some of each sex.

Only the rarest of rare fish, i.e. starting at the Conspiculatus Anglefish level, would blood testing be truly helpful. And by that point, for the average hobbyist, handling boodstock of an expensive species (i.e. the equivelent of a Macaw) to draw a blood sample for testing probably isn't as feasible as the Macaw (of course, if you're planning on breeding Conspic. Angels you probably would have PLENTY of funds and experience at your disposal anyway).

It's probably cheaper and easier for most of us to just pair them up like hobbists have been doing for decades.

Of course, here's another TRICK on a related front. With Victorian Cichlids, where the females from different SPECIES could potentially be mixed together, some folks administered testosterone via feed to the fish to get them to show male coloration (and thus make discernment of the species an easy task). Granted, we're talking about determining species vs. sex.

AHA though, here's another interesting thought. I wonder if slightly elevated testosterone levels could get the males of a species that only show dimorphic traits during courtship INTO that "Breeding Dress" (thinking about a way to sex Blue Dotted Jawfish whose males competely change color but only during courtship).

HMM.

Matt
 
Hi Matt and Colby,
Anyway I don´t think fishes have sex comossomes like mammals, avain and some reptiles do, so it could be a really hard task indeed.

AHA though, here's another interesting thought. I wonder if slightly elevated testosterone levels could get the males of a species that only show dimorphic traits during courtship INTO that "Breeding Dress" (thinking about a way to sex Blue Dotted Jawfish whose males competely change color but only during courtship).

What if you did that on a female ? I think it would show the mature male coloration too. Just as they did on the victorian cichlids or female Beta splendens... ;) Think you should have to sex the blues dotted to then see his breeding dress :)

Anderson.
 
Are you positive they test DNA for sex?I think it was chromosomes.Expensive large parrots are usually sexed by laparoscopy.
 
:confused: :confused: :confused:

AHA though, here's another interesting thought. I wonder if slightly elevated testosterone levels could get the males of a species that only show dimorphic traits during courtship INTO that "Breeding Dress" (thinking about a way to sex Blue Dotted Jawfish whose males competely change color but only during courtship).

Why not GnRH and let the fish choose the dress....... :confused:
I got go back to the books Matt
Anderson.
 
Hi Luis
Yes DNA ! Used to search for cromossomes but labor intensive, long waiting, etc... Just a drop of blood to check for a specific area on DNA (by PCR).
Anderson.
 
Matt,

I think that being able to DNA test fish for sex would be a MUCH better way than relying on other techniques...

For example if you DNA sexed fish there would be no guessing and no chance of two females hooking up...

In essence you would save a huge amount of time and money, take all of the guess work out.

I mean wouldnt you like to be able to know for a fact that you have a male'female pair of yellow tangs or triger fish or lion fish?
 
Well Colby, two females shouldn't ever Hook up...granted it does happen in Humans so one never really knows for sure.

My main thought is that with so much more information becoming available, we're starting to find that more and more of the marine fish are Hermaphroditic, either sequentially, simultaneously (Hamlets), AND/OR they actually do have distinct sexual dimorphism. Yes, in Triggers and Lionfish..at least with what I know about them a blood test for sexual identity probably WOULD be helpful.

Yellow Tangs? Again, from my understanding of what yellow tangs need as far as space for breeding is concerned, the amount the setup would cost I don't think the Yellow Tang breeder is going to have any qualms about purchasing a dozen or more tangs to breed with...that thought is probably applicable to just about ANY tang species, at least from a monetary standpoint. I'd suspect the same type of circumstance might arise for the average hobbyist attempting to breed lionfish. Triggerfish, Puffers, maybe there's the useful species.

The problem is that many of the fish that could benefit the most from this type of sexing are SMALL if not TINY. I'm thinking gobies that aren't hermaphroditic, firefish, cardinalfish, blennies (who actually HAVE dimorphic charactaristics), jawfish (again, in theory these do exhibit some dimorphism even when not sexually active), certain wrasse species that do NOT exhibit dimorphism (i.e. 6 Lines). MOST of these fish can be purchased for less than what it would cost to have their blood tested (assuming the costs would be in line with the $20 I found for sexing a parrot), let alone the fact that the average hobbyist is going to have a pretty hard time extracting blood from these fish. Unfortunately I think DNA/Chromosome/Blood testing isn't nearly as viable as it is in the avian arena...most likely any blood test for mariculture would be an industry type thing.

BTW, not showing off, but just trying to illustrate a point. Here's my current success rate on pairing up fish using only existing methods:

Synchiropus splendidus - successfully paired using dimorphic characteristic of elongated first dorsal spine in males.

Synchiropus stellatus - "ditto" although in this case the differences between male and female dorsal fins are much more dramatic than in the Mandarin.

Pterapogon kaudernii - successfully paired by purchasing 5 juveniles observing behavior and removing extra juveniles once a pair made their precense known.

Apogon leptacanthus - successfully paired by purchasing 3 individuals displaying different dorsal fin lengths and overall sizes..only later found out that in our group the FEMALES have the elongated dorsal spines and are the dominent fish in this small group

Hippocampus barbouri - successfully paired by purchasing a pair...male has pouch so it's a no-brainer anyways

Amphiprion percula - successfully paired by purchasing 2 juveniles of disparate sizes...sequential hermaphroditism takes care of the rest.

Gobiosoma multifasciatus - didn't set out to pair them up, but purchased 2 juvenile Captive Bred Greenbanded Gobies. Haven't seen conclusive evidence or even heard a definite statement of fact, but it is assumed that these are sequential hermaphrodites.

Firefish - most likely successfully paired by observing individual interactions amoung a group at the LFS. They get along, share a bolt hole, and overall act like a male/female pair of firefish is supposed to act....just waiting for larvae to prove that they are actually a pair.

Apogon margaritophorus - got LUCKY, purchasing all 3 in a LFS tank when a male was discovered holding a batch of eggs.

Ecsenius graveri - still not 100% sure on this one...simply ordered 2 from an online source, asked them to do their best to try to get disparate fish, and well, we had 2 spawns that didn't last long enough to determine if we have a male and female. Based on behavior, it would appear that we do have a pair...so it was a 50% gamble on purchasing only 2 fish.

- So to sum up my experiences, yes sometimes there's a bit of "luck" but for the most part MOST of the fish hobbyists are currently working with can be "sexed" or more appropriately paired by either having an understanding of the reproductive biology OR through observing the interactions between fish in a larger group. I just don't see the ability of testing all these fish as being a viable option for the HOME aquarist.

Where the real opportunity for something like this to be developed and put to good use would be on the business side of things, mostly in mariculture but also for a vendor who wanted to reliably pair up as many fish as possible in order to cater to breeders.

Just my $0.02.

Matt
 
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I agree that smaller specie of fish would not be great candidates for blood tests...

As far as yellow tangs go, I was recently in Hawaii and EVERY tang I saw had a mate that it shared a patch of reef with, they wer ALWAYS in pairs, so instead of keeping a large number of them why not replicate nature and set them up in pairs?

As far as two females, yes it "shouldn't happen" but it does, and with some frequency...so avoiding this situation to begin with is very attractive...
 
Yellow tangs are dimorphic.Males have rised scales on the caudal peduncle.
What gobies are hermaph.?Gobiodon clowns possibly?.I don´t think any gobiosoma/Elacatinus...
Regarding DNA sexing,I find it an exescise in futurology:p .
We first need to know how to raise larvae which we just can not so far.Might be useful for some FW fish.
 
This is something I have discussed extensivley with a dear old friend who has made his way at the cutting edge of the bio-tech industry. His feeling is that the first thing you need to do is show a need/ use for the technology to encourgae investors to establish it. Possibly appealing to commercial foodfish aquaculture could provide this. Obviously sexing marine ornamentals is not going to be a multi billion dollar industry so you need to apply the testing you want to something that can be seen as profitable. IF you can do that and procure the funding, lab space, equipment and personell required the next thing you need is known samples. LOTS of known samples. He suggests advertising heavily in trade related magazines and offering incentives such as free diagnostic results or whatever you can think of to encourage participation. Now you have to screen out the false "knowns", once you give people an incentive to participate there will be liars and greedy bastards giving you false information. Eventually you will establish testing protocol that will tell you far more than simply the sex of a fish, it will diagnose disease and even tell you how closely related any two fish might be. The whole problem with all of this is that, as stated above, it just isn't that difficult to establish broodstock pairs in the species we can already raise and determining sex is not the critical factor in the ones we can't :rolleyes: So going full circle, it would be difficult to show that need/ use that gets the whole thing rolling :D JMO based on extensive discussions with a biotech entrpeneur.
 
Almost forgot, Dan tells me there is another way. Find a greedy & disgruntled employee who has free access to a facility that already has the ability to produce the testing and create an underground lab :smokin: Aparantly this would not be the first time it's happened ;)
 
Yes yellow tangs are sexually dimorphic, but I do not have not yet refined my eye to the oint that I can look at any two given yellow tangs and distinguish their sex wit 100% accuracy...

I am working on my degree in biology with emphasis on marine biology and bio medical research so maybe I could use this as a type of project .....?
 
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