Originally Posted by Cichlid Connections

Hi China,

Your Balloon GT may look cute, vivid colors and stuff... but that is a result of propagating a poor gene. Balloons occur when inbreeding is practiced.. i.e lineage of the same parents... i.e mating the brother and sister fish, the mother or son (in human terms we call it 'incest' ). In practicing such, one or two fries will come out with a balloon feature and this is then picked/selected to be propagated in mass i.e picking the deform fish raising it and crosssing it with another for its balloon like features. It's propagating a deform fish. A balloon fish has a deformed "spinal cord".