Anyone Keeping Electric Blue Dempseys?

[fishme]

I think they're one of the most spectacular fish I've seen. Just wondering if anyone here has any experience with them.

[angel]

Not here. We just got our first dempseys and they're the regular variety. I love the look of the electric blue!

[jgentry]

I have one male and I'll have to say I have been highly disappointed in them in general. The process to breed quality EBJD's in very long and expensive. Many people are taking short cuts and producing poor quality EBJD's. Mine is decent looking but still just doesn't look right to me.

They are pricey, have a tendency to die when they are small, have a tendency to have a large list of defects (beak face, under bite, bent spin, etc), are extremely slow growing. Mine is 2 years old and only 5 inches. I've seen some abosulte stunning EBJD's online, but the chance of you getting one of those is one in a million. Just too much bad genetics in that line right now. If you can find a breeder that has good stock, I would highly recommend them. Otherwise I would pass on the ones sold in pet stores and most of the online sellers.

[angel]

So they're not a naturally occurring variant?

[jgentry]

It is naturally occuring. But it is not common and pretty much any of them born in the wild are usually eaten because there juvinile coloration makes them an easy target. It comes from a ressesive gene that is not normally expressed. To breed quality EBJD's it takes several years of breeding. The best EBJD's come from blue gene males and females that do not express the trait but have the genetics to produce them.