# Flowerhorn whipping out snakehead populations



## Poseidon X

Craze for fish unleashes "killer" 
By Hazlin Hassan

An obsession with ornamental fish in Asia has unleashed a killer hybrid in Malaysia which is terrorising local fish in the wild, anglers claim.

The flowerhorn, an odd-looking creature with a hump on its forehead and patterns on its body resembling Chinese letters, is the focus of a major craze in Malaysia and other parts of Asia.

Depending on the size of the hump and the quality of colour and markings, the carnivorous fish can fetch thousands of dollars.

A particularly prized flowerhorn was expected to reach 1.2 million ringgit (US$ 315 790) at an upcoming auction in Kuala Lumpur.

"The craze for rearing the fish all started when someone claimed to have made it rich after getting his lottery numbers from the black markings on the fish's body," Raymond Yen, a flowerhorn breeder, told AFP.

The distinctive hump is also found on the Chinese God of Longevity.

"People believe it brings them wealth and good luck," Yen said.

First introduced to Malaysia about four years ago, the flowerhorn is believed to be a hybrid between two cichlid species from Central and South America which has since been crossed with other species and therefore lacks a scientific name.

But despite the craze, not all flowerhorns look pretty enough or "lucky" enough for an aquarium, so many of the fish are tossed into the wild where they are believed to be wreaking havoc, according to the Malaysian Angling Association.

"It is the biggest con job that the aquarium industry has ever seen. You're talking about 80 000 to 100 000 ringgit (US$ 26 315) for a fish," the association's vice-president, Ismail Feisol, told AFP.

"But not all fetch that much. A poor boy can afford a fry for three ringgit," he said.

When the fish mature and fail to display the sort of colouring expected from a quality flowerhorn they are invariably dumped into the nearest drain, pond or waterway.

Raymond Yen said many breeders toss unwanted flowerhorn.

"Most of them are superstitious. They know their fish won't fetch a high price but they believe that since it's a fish that brings good luck it will bring you bad luck if you kill it."

Ismail Feisol said that some Malaysians also buy them especially to release into the wild. "They think they can get rid of their 'suey' (bad luck) that way."

"From a pair, you could get 200 fry every six months. The situation is critical."

He said every water body in Kuala Lumpur and neighbouring Selangor state was infested with flowerhorn, while the fish had also found its way into rice fields and canals in the far north.

An experiment involving throwing bread on the waters of seven lakes in Kelana Jaya, Selangor showed that most of the fish which rose were flowerhorn, some of them hideously mutant.

The fear is that they could start wiping out local fish, much like the Asian snakehead, which recently caused alarm bells to sound in the United States.

Concerned about the potential damage to its inland fisheries, the US banned imports of the fish, which is known for its razor-sharp teeth and voracious appetite.

Although aquarium specimens average about 25 centimetres (10 inches) in length, flowerhorns can grow up to three kilogrammes (more than six pounds) in the wild, Raymond said.

"Nearly all local fish would be affected. The flowerhorn eat anything," Ismail said.

"We have realised that where this fish is in abundance, there are no more snakehead because they attack the fry. The three-spotted gurami, which is a slow-moving fish, is badly affected. The fighting fish too.

"At the end of the day, there will be no more local fish."

In an effort to fight back, he said: "We will try to catch the present stock and add local predator fish like the Malaysian jungle perch, featherback, giant snakehead, and pray that nature will take its course.

"These are vicious buggers, hopefully they will wallop the flowerhorn."

Environmentalist Chris Shepherd of Traffic Southeast Asia told AFP he had not heard that the flowerhorn had spread in the wild in Malaysia, but said if they did this it could create a potentially serious threat to the native species and their habitat.

"There has been little or no research done on the impact these fish will have, but it is pretty safe to say that releasing them into the wild will come to no good."

AFP


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## Death in #'s

> Nearly all local fish would be affected. The flowerhorn eat anything," Ismail said.










wow that sucks
and of course


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## Poseidon X

2003 Aquarama grand champion


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## Polypterus

Oh for f*ck sake, Humans suck, I give up and pray for nuclear
annalilation,

we are going to end up with a world full of stupid fish
where they do not belong at this rate,

Interesting from an evolutionary perspective, devestating for diversity.
Oh well there goes another specialized enviornment,

Thank your local Flowerhorn breeder,

so when this really catches
on here in the U.S. do we get to have the same fun?
Again


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## Innes

_to cichlids_


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## piranha45

hahahaha, first the snakeheads then these circus fish will start wiping out bass









personally I'm surprised shs are suffering so badly, I would have thought THEY were the perfect survivor


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## Poseidon X

Ok i posted some comments on this artice on a different site.. just seeing what your opinion is.. firstly this is over a year old, i have not seen any recent article relating to a FH problem in the wild. I believe they were able to whip the fish out of the native waters for the most part, and made annoucements to make people realize what they were doing. This is mostly human ignorance. Breeders use their fish as feeders or they put them to sleep with a tranq. The big time breeders are not doing this, its the guy breeding in his basement that is the real threat here. A big problem here exists because you can bet some of the fish released were from nice parents. I cannot even imagine the genetic potential these things have to be monsters in the wild... there is no comparison in width, size and overal weight compared to any of the simliar CA. My 4-5" one that arrived dead was almost as thick as a clenched fist to give you and idea of how massive they are. Plus, the original lou han were reaching sizes of 20" in malaysia in 120 galon tanks... just think in the wild what could happen. People are breeding a bunch of crap flowerhorn in the usa right now that they were somehow able to get a hold of, but the nice females are only in the possesion of peope in the flowerhorn community. FHUSA is an entry ground for all of the quality fh in the usa.. and non of these are females. Females will be available but not to the genera public. Basically we dont want these fish breeding at all in the usa unless its being done by someone whos is active in the community and has high ethical values.... These guys will cause havoc.. and even more alarming, because flowerhorn have been exposed to higher then usual salt levels there are now reports of a Flowerhorn in california that is living in a marine tank!... Just think if they escaped into the ocean?! hmm Piranha II?

Whether purist are able to admit it or not..... These FH are genetical superior in the physical sense to any of their relatives. Just like if you were to clone a bunch of Mr. Olympias... Thats why we must be very strict about not letting people get their hands on females.
A guy i just sold some fish to told me that his flowerhorn( rea deal ones from NYC) had killed his two much larger snakeheads FYI


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## Poseidon X

hey... Innes could you move this one back since this effects fishkeeping in general? This isnt really an isolated cichlid incident, it could happen with any non-native fish.


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## Kory

Poseidon X said:


> 2003 Aquarama grand champion


 wtf that top one looks like they injected a golf ball in his head.


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## Poseidon X

thats alot bigger then a golf ball.. its also larger then a softball and worth a whole lotta money.


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## thoroughbred

that thing loks like atumor take that off it its a beautiful fish


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## RhomZilla

I see it as this.. if FH get too troublesome and become niusance to the waters in Asia, imagine how F&G will catagorize these fish also? My guess.. they might illegalize it. But just my opinion..


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## Poseidon X

You could find a thousand other flowerhorn that looked exactly the same only minus the KOK. The big head is what make these champions. Any guy should be able to relate to this. You can be pee-wee or you can be arnold. Dominant fish develope these because they have been genetica chosen... just like silver back gorilla. A head like that is a 1 in 3,000,000 type. i would roughly say that fish costs around $30,000.

They couldnt survive anywhere in the united states except for maybe southern florida or souther california so banning them will never be an issue. They will ban piranha well before they ban flowerhorn... thats like saying, hey lets ban bettas because their wrecking havoc? Those waters wher they could survive are already infested with horde of pure cichlids that dont belong there, including peacock bass and jaguar hybrids? Fish and games has no reign over this product because its a "product" This isnt something that is capture from nature, it been man made for the purpose of selling..They would have to ban every singe cichid before they could possibly ban FH, becuase whats to say someone couldnt just selectively breed and cross their own strains in the USA?


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## Poseidon X

DANGER DANGER


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## rday

i dont think eating snakehead fry makes flowerhorns some bad ass fish, sh*t, my cons will do it. and i have a lot of respect for three spot gourami! i had 3 that survived my piranhas and my cichlids. and as for this whole "genetically superior" thing, re-read the part about the experiment of throwing bread into the water and the "hideously mutant" fish. i can't wait until this flowerhorn fetish dies out and people realize the money they spent on a fish.


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## Grosse Gurke

Yeah, I dont think the larger snakeheads have much to worry about, they are talking FH eating fry......


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## Poseidon X

ha you should no better then to buy into the sensationalism in this article... what did they say about snakeheads when they found them in the usa... they made them sound like sea serpents. Hideously mutated fish! haha they had awesome lineage so they had big heads... dominant cichlids in nature all have those huge heads... i think it would be pretty funny to see some giant ball coming at you hanging out of the water lookin for a quick nibble.

Dont hold your breath for anything to die out, the only thing that liable to die out is the kidnapping wild fish from their environment to place in glass cages. Maybe if you have ever actually seen these fish in person you would know why people want them, and im not talking about the fake ones sold at an lfs.
The day people stop buying attractive fish for ugly ones is the day flowerhorn will die.

























if snakeheads had some kind of superiority on them then the flowerhorns would have been eaten, but that is not the case.. the snakeheads are being destroyed. FH would grow 20" in about a year in the wild so they are hardly small. A 5" FH is as thick as a clenched fist, they are 3x as muscular as their pure relatives.. not to mention their short body still leaves them a huge head with a small body. What another fish that breeds in mass quatity that is nasty? Piranha? yeah right, i have been around 100s of piranha and even the "meanest" can not come close in any kind of measurement of aggression as any large central american.


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## Grosse Gurke

> if snakeheads had some kind of superiority on them then the flowerhorns would have been eaten, but that is not the case.. the snakeheads are being destroyed.


Sounds like we have a taker for the Snakehead VS. anything thread!!!!
Your FH against SMTT's Snakehead....should be no match for your FH right? Even at a small size because Im sure that is what is getting dumped.
Oh, and exactly how do you know they get 20" in the wild?


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## Poseidon X

in a 120 gallon they will grow near 20" in captivity, there is a couple article on this too. Compare reasonably sized specimens, like i said someone on pfish who i met recently had to snakeheads in with his medium sized fh that was 2/3s the size and he killed both of them. I wouldnt be putting up a $300 fish against a $30 fish though, especially being that thing is definately a beast.


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## crazyklown89

Wait.....so feeding bread to your FH cause them become horrible mutants?!?!

*(runs to scoop bread out of tank*)








I'm just joking.


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## rday

> if snakeheads had some kind of superiority on them then the flowerhorns would have been eaten, but that is not the case


that's one simple way of looking at it; another, more ecologically sound way is to consider that the flowerhorn is an alien fish and that gives its its ability to wipe out native populations, not genetic superiority. when you have an influx of pisciverous fish that have no natural predators (especially in this case, as they are not a natural fish) there is no question that that fish can decimate populations of other fish.


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## Poseidon X

HAHA hey, just and FYI, theoretically feeding fish bread would cause them to grow to an above average obese size because of the high insulin spike and resulting incrase in glycogen levels in thefish. The flowerhorn is well known as the lucky fish.. think about malaysians saying hey lets go feed the flowerhorns bread...so they their standing by the side of the water tosing bread in and a bunch of giant humps pop out of the water. HAHA i really would think that would be funny to see, despite the fact that is really not funny at the same time.


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## crazyklown89

No, no it'd be pretty damn funny and you know it!


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## piranha45

hell yeah


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## Poseidon X

with all seriousness, my career will hopefully take me to palm springs to broker produce there. If my Socal dreams come true ill surely be building a huge pond featuring some 3 foot adonis plecos and of course 50 or so"mutant" flowerhorns


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## Polypterus

> The day people stop buying attractive fish for ugly ones is the day flowerhorn will die.


I pray for that day,

I like my Butt ugly brown fish,
certianly better than a deformed mutated genitic screw up,
to say these fish are geneticly superior is a bit far-fetched man,
these fish are far from being a super race of fish, they are mutatated
screw-ups, most I've seen show severe signs of inbreeding and deformity,
these fish are sickening to look at when your used to looking at naturally
occuring species.

No offense to you I know you really like these fish, I just can not understand why?
then some can't see why I like lamprey. so I guess we are in the same
world just very different circumstance and ideas of "attractive" fish


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## piranha45

poly you do bring up a good point, i personally dont like them either but ive seen so many now that im pretty desensitized to it all and thanks to this f*cker's brainwashing im able to spot out good fhs and bad fhs







... and the rest of us are curious why you treasure your filter-feeding worms, or what joy you derive from specimens sucking on hamburger meat tubes


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## Poseidon X

i would like to see some pictures of what your calling "deformed" and i will probably agree that they are gross or i may be completely disagreeing with your interpretation. Just because there are pictures with ones with ridiculous heads people think they are all like that, look at the pictures i posted up top? do they look deformed? The number one point that draws buyers to the fish is not the color, buts its the shape.. its meant to be visually attractive and most of the people who think they arent from pictures, might change their mind if they see them in person. I changed my mind when i went to my first flowerhorn only shop and was pretty shocked by how graceful they were. These are just one aspect of my fish keeping, i dont want a hybrid for he sake of it being a hybrid... i would much rather have a pure fish then any flowerhorn you find in an lfs. I will pay high dollar for the fish that i believe are perfectly shaped in the image i want them to be no matter what they are. I also like cool shaped fish that arent colorful.. i have really come around to polys and they are of an increasing intrest to me because their shape is beutiful.

Whatever kind of fish were talking about.. when we are speaking of hand selected fish, who have had 80% of their brothers killed because they were not perfect or not thick enough or not male then you are always going to get a genetically superior fish. If they did this with trimac... same results, but they dont. Im am attempting to get all my fish imported from asia for this reason, they are of a higher quality then what is available in the USA. Also i highly disagree with any kind of inbreeding that goes on (mostly by hobbyist), but most of these fish have very little inbreeding associated with them. Your typical LFS cichlids probably have the same amount of inbreeding in their bloodlines.


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## rday

i think the point polypterus was making (and correct me if i am wrong) is that they are ugly and deformed looking because they look like they were pieced together from the parts of other cichlids. the exact thing you see as perfect form looks ridiculous to some. the beauty of a lamprey or a paddlefish or an amia calva is that they are naturally designed to be perfect for what they do. there is no human manipulation or selective breeeding involved to improve head size or fin length or body girth, they are what they are and they have been that way for a long long time.


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## acestro

Oh geez, I lost track of how many things I wanted to address!

First off, once again, to each their own. I prefer God/Nature's work of hundreds of millions of years of selection over human selection. However, Darwin learned of natural selection partly from pigeon breeders (Although Wallace didn't...ANYWAY>>>_)



> Whether purist are able to admit it or not..... These FH are genetical superior in the physical sense to any of their relatives.


Superior may include more things than color and aggression and nuchal humps.
I agree that there seems to be some impressive abilities of these and other cichlid hybrids. But there may be some other internal/physiological aspects where they are inferior. Let's think about the selective advantage of being really colorful with a big hump on your head when an otter/No Solicitation Allowed/heron is hungry...

It may be hype (like the snakeheads definitely were) but it should be taken seriously. Invasive fish are no joke. rday put it well..



> consider that the flowerhorn is an alien fish and that gives its its ability to wipe out native populations, not genetic superiority


The ecosystem and its inhabitants have not evolved to deal with cichlids, this part of the world has never seen a cichlid (EVER, they originated from Gondwanaland (sp.?) which had SA, AFR, INDIA). And I'm not even going to start on the bread thing! I studied comparative endocrinology for my Master's and that bread stuff is beyond silly!

Overall great discussion topic!


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## crazyklown89

Dude I hope bought my FH hoping that he just retains the colors and not tat God-awful head.

You have to admit FHs are like smaller and more colorful doviis but the doviis dont have big koks


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## Poseidon X

actually dovii do get decent sized humps. But since the humps are linked genetically and most of the dovii in the united states are comming from not to many pair which were probably inbred, they dont come with humps. If you go catch some in the river though the big time males all have humps on their heads. It would be mega expensive to import these fish in at their large size. Your talking about maybe 750 to get one of these shipped to your door. Dovii kick ass. The bread turning the flowerhorn into mutants was clearly a joke but bread would cause higher blood sugar levels in the fish. Its the same thing with humans, if you workout and eat nothing but protein you will not gain any muscle. In addition to being a former bodybuilder i still teach seminars on mastery of the glycemic index and munipulation of insulin for garunteed weight loss.


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## vanz

FH...are they hybrids like blood parrot cichlid? Man my GF loved these fish, I couldn't understand why...they can't swim for sh*t and their mouth was always open. And at petsmart...I saw some with no tails







that's some fucked up person if they buy those.


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## Poseidon X

the ones without tails are hideos, they are not from malaysia... people in europe were breeding that crap. Any kind of deformity on the fish is though of as disgusting by collectors. What you saw was king kong parrots they were not flowerhorn. flowerhorn have no jaw problems or anything on their body.
do you see any problems here? Pet smart does not sell real Lou Hans


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## Kory

> do you see any problems here?


Yes that fish looks like it has down syndrome.


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## piranha45

yeah and its ugly


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## crazyklown89

I hate the kok but the fish itself is beautiful

And don't try arguing with me if you think a piranha is beautiful then a kokless FH is a god compared to them.


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## Poseidon X

Beutiful Blue Dragon







The quality of the markings is superb for a USA fish. Mega huge waterhead..perfect. The competitions are starting up soon, everyone is scrambling to collect an array of masterpieces for USA competition. 
The rarity of producing one like this is quite high.. i would say this is in the 1k-1.2k range


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## Birdman

Poseidon X said:


> with all seriousness, my career will hopefully take me to palm springs to broker produce there. If my Socal dreams come true ill surely be building a huge pond featuring some 3 foot adonis plecos and of course 50 or so"mutant" flowerhorns


 WHAT!!!!!!!!!


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## piranha45

whats your problem with that?


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## Poseidon X

uh oh.. little brother doesnt like that idea


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## Lahot

take him with you, there are colleges in Cali


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## piranha45

screw that, ship the f*cker to australia :nod:


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## Poseidon X

I think he needs to carry on my legacy at the citadel and learn some discipline


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