# Can Midas and Cuban cichlids be crossbred?



## fathertime (Sep 1, 2016)

Good afternoon all,

Over the last few months I've found myself quite interested in flowerhorns and have been attempting to familiarize myself with the different varieties that exist. As I've been researching it's quickly become clear to me that there is a tremendous amount of speculation on what species are actually combined to create a "flowerhorn". I've read that many species are considered to be in the flowerhorn bloodline, including but not limited to:

Trimac, Midas, Red Devil, Synspilim, Festae, Texas cichlid, Jack Dempsey, Severum and Red parrot.

Currently I am seeking out either a silver titanium flowerhorn or a black and white flowerhorn, but as far as I have seen they either do not exist or are very rare one off lines that are not readily available to hobbyist. So this got me thinking&#8230; Why not look into starting from scratch in an attempt to start a line of a specifically desired body and color form. For the record, I do understand the hardships that come along with such a proposal, but frankly I am the type of person who loves trial and error&#8230; worst case scenario I never end up with fry and waste some time (but who can say trying to breed fish is a waste of time), best case scenario I end up with a unique hybrid that I can enjoy and share with my local community. So, with that said&#8230; I am curious whether or not a Midas can be crossbred with a Cuban?

Midas Cichlid









Cuban Cichlid









I was thinking a male Midas to get the body form and kok, and a female Cuban to hopefully contribute color and patterning. My goal would be to have a black and white patterned kamfa body style flowerhorn.

As far as anyone is aware is it possible to crossbreed these two species, and if so does anyone know typically what the resulting offspring would look like? I do understand that when cross breeding the results are not even remotely consistent, but I am speaking in generalities.

Thank you in advance to all who are able and willing to shed some light on this subject, all input in greatly appreciated.


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

Why not speed the process up, and try and breed a flowerhorn to a cuban? Given the flowerhorn's mixed background, it would probably hybridize further more readily. I can't help otherwise though.


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## fathertime (Sep 1, 2016)

Fogelhund said:


> Why not speed the process up, and try and breed a flowerhorn to a cuban? Given the flowerhorn's mixed background, it would probably hybridize further more readily. I can't help otherwise though.


My only reasoning for avoiding that approach was that I am trying to obtain a true black and white coloration, and most flowerhorns I've seen have reds, yellows, oranges, blues and purples; I feared that if I started with any pre-existing flowerhorn that I would work just as hard to phase out the undesired colors as I would trying to breed in strong black and white definition... however, this was purely speculation as I truly don't know which method would be harder.

At this point I am purely daydreaming, the logistics of such a proposal would still need to be figured out; although I do have a good sized fish room:

4 x 75 gallon
6 x 40 gallon
10 x 10 gallon
10 x 20 gallon

so space shouldn't be an issue.

p.s. I should note, I do not plan on putting a full grown flowerhorn in any of the above specified aquariums, when/if I do have success with such a project my prized offspring will be moved to my personal 150 gallon aquarium as his final home (I know some people hate to hear of flowerhorns in such small dwellings, I do not plan on doing such a thing).


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## BC in SK (Aug 11, 2012)

fathertime said:


> I am curious whether or not a Midas can be crossbred with a Cuban?


It is my understanding that any CA cichlid can be crossed with another CA cichlid and produce offspring (with the exception of the lone acara and only geo that come from CA).
Now whether or not all will produce viable offspring.....or sterile offspring, I couldn't say. Most crosses are likely viable as CA cichlids are all closely related genetically......though the common blood parrot would be an example of a CA cross that produces sterile males.
Midas/RD crosees with other CA are fairly common on the internet. Cuban crosses are not, Though I've seen a few crosses on line. Have not seen this cross specifically (midas X cuban), though should not be any different then any other CA cross.


fathertime said:


> I was thinking a male Midas to get the body form and kok, and a female Cuban to hopefully contribute color and patterning. My goal would be to have a black and white patterned kamfa body style flowerhorn.


There is no telling what the hybrids will look like. Probably have to line breed it for a few generations to get the desired look.....and then it would just be a one of a kind fish as few hybrids breed true.
In the past, I seen have seen a number of threads showing hybrid breeding projects on various forums.....so far, have yet to see any of these projects amount to much.


fathertime said:


> 4 x 75 gallon
> 6 x 40 gallon
> 10 x 10 gallon
> 10 x 20 gallon


Probably not that much space to undertake any kind of long term line breeding project. Bear in mind a cuban is a highly aggressive 12"+ cichlid, just like a midas or flowerhorn.
Often, CA can breed at young and small size, so a divided 75 gal. might work for breeding tanks. Not sure what your past experience with breeding aggressive CA is, but light difuser can work well as a divider. Sometimes CA will breed successfully with out even removing the divider.
All your extra fry and juvies would have to be handled in house. You'd certainly be doing the hobby no favour by distributing 'ad hoc' hybrids. I think you would find the majority on fish forums to be very much against this practice.
Then again you might get lucky and get what you are looking for in the first spawn.


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## BC in SK (Aug 11, 2012)

Here's a link to a thread that shows a few different CA crosseshttps://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/...id-hybrid-example-thread-load-warning.491862/
You can click on the pictures and it might give you some idea how various crosses might turn out.


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