History of Red Zebra in the hobby Red zebra history in America follows in the mid 70s two shipments from Mozambique contained red zebras . The males were blue and the females were red. As I was told in the early 80s buy the people that were in this since the early 70s is that one or two O males had popped out of some of the wild imports. The demand started for O males ,They could not get any shipments out of Mozambique due to a civil war. They have found other populations of Zebras that had O morphs. Now as I was told the people collecting on the lake at that time were not the most honest people. This is before Grant became the main player on the lake. If Im not mistaken it was after the Davies, Peter and his wife or Richard Furzer Im almost it was the latter. We they were taking these o morph fish that were not from Minos reef ( At that time know one knew where red zebras came from ,Just Mozambique ) Any whos. The O males were rare but they commanded a high price 100 wholesale. In time we had found out that all those red males were not the same location as the first red zebras. Also white cobalts were sold as red males ,not the pearl white the non pearl whites .This was not only done by the importers but by so called reputable people selling to hobbyist/breeders. Remember the thinking at the time was all zebras were the same fish just different colors because they came from different localitys in the lake. Someone had crossed a rusty cichlid cichlid ( the purple phase ) to the red zebras. This cross enhanced the orange pigment. See in wild Esthera they are a florescent red/orange color. This color fades to a light orange color in the indoor environment. These hybrids did not loose their color. The new was coined Red Anni These were bred back to red zebra and line bred to create the crimson red. They quickly became all the rage and the FL. farms were soon to become the leaders in the production of this new hybrid at this time. They also bred this strain to the albino zebra to produce the albino red zebra. ( not the one in the hobby today. It its totally different and is a Hypomelanistic not a true albino ) These were bred to produce the deepest red on red fish and the name Cherry red was coined. This hybrid was applied to the rare Ob phase, has a small mottled pattern of a bluish blotch. Un like most OB females that have a brown blotch. Now you had the color of the Red OB to the crimson zebra. These were crossed to other locations of OB zebras where the OB males zebras had orange on them and the pinto Zebra, also known in this country as pinto or Mozambique zebra. That was a zebra that had big geometric blotches, this pattern was known as Big Block.. The males were white with big indigo blue blotches on them & the females had a cream to a white background with big black blotches, notice I dont say spots or mottling. So at this time pure reds were few and far between. only a few people had them. As time went on none were pure any more . All the red obs no longer had the same orange color , nor did they had the mottled bluish pattern but big black blotches . Now there is a Red OB zebra that they call albino Red OB but it is not a true albino it is Hypomelanistic. It had a wine red eye . Albinos have a bright red eye. They were developed by a Florida fish farmer and it has big blocks .
Posted on: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 02:58:35 +0000