Andinoacara sp. “Electric Blue”

General Information

Little information has been confirmed about the true origins of the Electric Blue Acara, but the most plausible theory is that they are a product of forced hybridization. This is a process where by the eggs from a female fish are mixed manually with the mily of a genetically similar donor male species.
In this instance, with the Electric Blue Acara, Asian fish farms are able to fertilise the eggs of a blue acara, or related species (It maybe be one of the closely related species to Andinoacara pulcher) with the milt of a male Electric Blue Ram (Mikrogeophagus ramirezi).
Resulting in "blue acara" eggs that havent been fertilized by "Electric Blue Ram" milt, when hatched and raised at the farm facilities

Where the resulting fry are rasied to sexual maturity and then line bred in order to stabilise the recessive trait.

As with the Electric Blue Ram, the Electric Blue Acara will breed true with all of the fry exhibiting electric blue coloration.
However, if they are bred with a "standard/natural" fish of the Andinoacara of the pulcher group, they will produce in fish that closely resemble the wild variant, but they will carry the genetic makeup for the Electric Blue Acara as a recessive gene.

This means it is possible to introduce new/fresh genetics into the pool for the long term health of the species, while still retaining the electric blue genetics and thus the colour morph offspring.

For care and maintenace of this species, please see A. pulcher