Anyone know anything about clownfish genetics? I have a lighting maroon female I'm hoping to breed, but I can only find normal maroon males. If a normal and a lightning maroon have babies, how many could I expect to be lightning morphs?
Clownfish genetics
- Thread starter Wolf89
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Surfzone
Well-Known Member
Expect a mixed lot. How many of what you get will be up to luck.
ThRoewer
Valuable Member
Have a look at Mendel's "laws" of inheritance.
ThRoewer
Valuable Member
Did you check out Matt Pederson's Lightning Project website? Maybe there is something to find.
Matt Pederson makes a pretty good case for lightning being a partial dominant trait. If you don't want to read the entire article, start about 1/3 of the way down to get an idea for what he is talking about, then skip to the end if you can't deal with the technical sections of the article.
Clowns are becoming a bit like the guppies of the marine aquarium world. The protocols are down pretty good and they are becoming easier to breed. They are a good starting point for home breeding programs.
Other than the top commercial breeders, I haven't really heard much about new designer strains coming from home breeders (Pederson being an exception). It is mostly a race to the bottom to get the newest high dollar strain and put out pairs before the bottom drops out. It would be great to see the home breeders putting more effort into determining the traits to develop specific characteristics. A lot of what is out there isn't well tracked and there has been a lot of cross breeding, so unless you are starting with wild caught, it is really tough to determine what you are really working with.
If it wasn't such a struggle to keep clubs going, it would be great to see breeding competitions like in the freshwater world where the focus shifts to quality and refining traits. It does conflict with the conservation side a bit, but there are a lot of people focused on the conservation side who are maintaining endangered species and species that are extinct in the wild.
Clowns are becoming a bit like the guppies of the marine aquarium world. The protocols are down pretty good and they are becoming easier to breed. They are a good starting point for home breeding programs.
Other than the top commercial breeders, I haven't really heard much about new designer strains coming from home breeders (Pederson being an exception). It is mostly a race to the bottom to get the newest high dollar strain and put out pairs before the bottom drops out. It would be great to see the home breeders putting more effort into determining the traits to develop specific characteristics. A lot of what is out there isn't well tracked and there has been a lot of cross breeding, so unless you are starting with wild caught, it is really tough to determine what you are really working with.
If it wasn't such a struggle to keep clubs going, it would be great to see breeding competitions like in the freshwater world where the focus shifts to quality and refining traits. It does conflict with the conservation side a bit, but there are a lot of people focused on the conservation side who are maintaining endangered species and species that are extinct in the wild.
ThRoewer
Valuable Member
It isn't that easy actually if you have high standards and aim to breed anemonefish that are free of deformities and indistinguishable from their wild forms.
I've been watching the whole designer fad in horror. Instead of aiming to breed natural fish without deformities, it's all about new color schemes and enhancing disabilities like longfins and impaired eyesight...
I only breed with wild-caught Anemonefish or flawless tank-breds of which I know where the parents came from.
To me, a misbar is a value lowering defect and a juvenile with a deformed face is going to the grouper tank... yet what stores asking for is the freakshow ;(
Well, he is actually not really creating designer strains but rather just tries to preserve a natural aberration (at least that was his intent at the start).
Freshwater breeding has two sides, one that is as bad as the designer clown mills and the other where you get banished from the club for life if you breed fish without well-documented lineages or cross a fish collected from one location with one from a neighboring location as those may already be different strains or even different species.
The latter is what I would want to see in serious Anemonefish breeding. Keep in mind that all those fish that are lumped together under A. clarkii are most likely not local variants but distinct species - at least that is what recent genetic research suggests.
And those percula (lookalikes) from Indonesia (West Papua & Sulawesi) are genetically more apart from the true New Britain/Solomon Island A. percula than A. sandaracinos, A. akallopisos, and A. perideraion are from each other (see J Timm - 2008, Molecular ecology and evolution of anemonefishes (Amphiprion spp) in the Indo-Malay Archipelago)
With the "ocellaris" things are even murkier, even if you only consider the orange versions. And the "black ocellaris" from Northwestern Australia are most likely a species in their own right: A. bicolor.
That's kind of what I was getting at. The focus is getting the latest strain out before it proliferates and floods the market, removing the majority of the profit margin. It is a commodity rush with little concern/awareness for the quality of the livestock being produced. If the pattern genetics are there, people will buy and breed the deformed fish as long as it isn't too blatant. It is like the big box store Betta stock. Poorly managed, poorly bred, with no concern for the quality of the fish or paying attention to the back-crossing and inbreeding. Fish can handle it to a point and it can be required to lock in certain traits and morphs, but done without care and eventual out-crossing, you will end with with severely deformed and sick fish.
Guppies did help in developing an understanding of genetic traits. There is such a strong understanding that people can effectively design a color and pattern configuration, select the breeding stock, and get there within several generations. Not really my thing, but the top breeders have some serious focus and dedication with a good focus on overall health. A novel strain that outputs a noticeable percentage of defects or doesn't breed true isn't accepted.
At least with the designer guppy breeding, there is a focus on the health of the fish, not just the patterns. The general stuff that makes it into the typical pet store might be another story, but guppies are so prolific that the good breeders are able to sell their "culls" (deficient in the pattern from a show perspective, which is nearly indiscernible to the average fish keeper, or intermediate patterns). The volume is high enough that the deformed fish from poorly managed breeding go into the feeder tank.
Thankfully I haven't seen deformed clowns outside of private sales around here. The stores are only carrying the healthier fish. There are enough people breeding that they can be picky about what they choose and still meet demand with decent profit margins with low pricing on ocellaris and percula. The breeders aren't making much per fish, but if their volumes are good, they can make a few bucks to support their hobby.
You and breeders like you are generally a rare occurrence. The conservation and preservation isn't really cultivated, but marine breeding isn't as proliferated in general as it is with the freshwater side. We've got to work on developing and disseminating the protocols.
I always forget that lightning originated from natural stock. Clowns were never really appealing to me, probably due to the fact that I started with nano and pico tanks and the proliferation of clowns once I finally got into the realm of considering larger fish. I can see the appeal if you are maintaining wild type traits and getting into the minutia of local variants vs distinct species.
All of this reminds me of the reasons I regret giving away my Endler's Livebearers years ago. I had true blackbar wild type Endler's that showed proper patterning and metallics. They probably got dumped in with guppies even though I was assured that they wouldn't. It is nearly impossible to find Endler's with proper coloration and that haven't been kept with guppies. I haven't seen anything labeled as N-class that aren't deformed or with poor coloration. They are suspected to be extinct in the wild due to being originally found in a single pool adjacent to a landfill. They have not been found again despite many attempts to locate the original wild populations.
sabeypets
Active Member
"Anyone know anything about clownfish genetics? I have a lighting maroon female I'm hoping to breed, but I can only find normal maroon males. If a normal and a lightning maroon have babies, how many could I expect to be lightning morphs?"
Most of the clownfish color morphs are co-dominate. In theory you would get 25% lightnings and 75% regulars. I have seen results from 15% up to 45% lightnings, so it just depends on the pair.
Most of the clownfish color morphs are co-dominate. In theory you would get 25% lightnings and 75% regulars. I have seen results from 15% up to 45% lightnings, so it just depends on the pair.
ThRoewer
Valuable Member
I don't know where you are located but around here the natural strains of clownfish (= percula and ocellaris) from private breeders are generally on the higher quality side.
The worst deformed anemonefish are the ones from ORA. I haven't seen a single one that was even marginally acceptable.
Sea&Reef is better in quality but even they produce anemonefish that are at times extremely deformed. A store here had some tank bred latifasciatus (the form from northwest Madagascar) that were so deformed that I would be afraid to feed them to a grouper out of feat that he might get scared to death. And they were crazy expensive because it is a rather rare fish.
And of course, the designer forms are the worst when it comes to deformities like stubby faces, flared opercula,... you name it.
I'm just raising a small batch of Red Sea anemonefish. The parent came from Djibouti /Gulf of Aden which may be a slightly different strain than the ones from inside the Red Sea.
So far they are looking good and I can't spot any defects or deformities:
The problem with Anemonefish is that most get rather large and that they are not very sociable among each other. So you pretty much need a 20 to 40-gallon tank for each pair. There are probably 70+ species/local forms and you would need a number of pairs for each...
