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I have no issue with culling in principle. Especially with such prolific species where in the wild deformed fish typically would not survive long. Don't find it fun to do, though.
Just thought I'd throw in the discussion that some deformities will not be genetic, but rather developmental issues or injuries. Why not breed a fish with some rare and desirable traits who happens to have a tail kink that came from its egg being squished at the bottom of a pile? etc.
Of course - differentiating between such issues becomes extrordinarily difficult when you start getting into epigenetics... which we still are only barely scratching the surface of understanding. IE what about the kinked spine that was caused by a lack of some trace element in the water during embryonic development interfering with calcium being processed correctly in that one area along the animal's spine? (I totally just made that up, but it could be an example.)
As far as inbreeding goes- this debate gets held 8 million times a day on 8 million different forums, I'm sure.
My own opinion is that linebreeding can be done responsibly, but responsible linebreeding involves periodic incorporation of fresh blood. Populations that are so isolated and linebred that all individuals are incredibly genetically similar are at incredibly more at risk for extinction events than populations showing more genetic diversity.
This has been researched and documented over and over and over again.
Just thought I'd throw in the discussion that some deformities will not be genetic, but rather developmental issues or injuries. Why not breed a fish with some rare and desirable traits who happens to have a tail kink that came from its egg being squished at the bottom of a pile? etc.
Of course - differentiating between such issues becomes extrordinarily difficult when you start getting into epigenetics... which we still are only barely scratching the surface of understanding. IE what about the kinked spine that was caused by a lack of some trace element in the water during embryonic development interfering with calcium being processed correctly in that one area along the animal's spine? (I totally just made that up, but it could be an example.)
As far as inbreeding goes- this debate gets held 8 million times a day on 8 million different forums, I'm sure.
My own opinion is that linebreeding can be done responsibly, but responsible linebreeding involves periodic incorporation of fresh blood. Populations that are so isolated and linebred that all individuals are incredibly genetically similar are at incredibly more at risk for extinction events than populations showing more genetic diversity.
This has been researched and documented over and over and over again.
