Designer Clownfish - What's your taste?

[btkrausen]

With so many different designer clownfish out there, just wanted to get your thoughts and preferences.

Do you enjoy the designer clowns more than "normal/typical" clowns?
What other "designs" do you wish would be available? (known or your own ideas)
What are the best/worst aspects of these designer clowns?

 

[btkrausen]

Personally, I enjoy most of the designer clowns, but, to be honest, I don't see myself buying anymore. I think I'm "over" them, haha. Best aspect, which can't be beat, of these clowns in that they are tank bred, reducing the amount being pulled from the ocean.

My idea of an awesome looking clown would be a Black Snowflake with an all white tail.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

I like the designer better actually. A true mature onyx though is hard to beat as well for me.

Zebra stripes is what I want to see!

 

[btkrausen]

These are what I'm trying to find - I love the white tail:

Here is an adult:

 

[nissanrs]

gucci clowns

 

[FishLipz]

I like the idea of more captive raised fish, no matter what species. The other cool thing is they now come in every variety to suit anyones taste, from wild to mild. What is important though, is that these mutations don't end up introduced into wild populations. Personally, I've got my eye on a pair of the ORA Spotcinctus. I like my percs like nature intended

 

[Alpha Aquaculture]

We need to keep track of which breeds are Percula and Ocellaris hybrids. I'm begining to become a larger fan of the 'pure' ocellaris and 'pure' percula breeds. Over the years, this 'purity' will get muddled. So I've been trying to keep many of my broodstock pairs either percula or ocellaris.

Bryan, I will get you excited about designer clownfish again... I'm gonna do a photo spread for all my broodstock pairs, around 75 right now that I know will get people excited. Thats another thing I would like is to be able to see breeders broodstock pairs. I don't wanna add any fish to my broodstock without knowing what the parents look like. There are a lot of breeders out there who are breeding and selling fish from lower genetic quality parents just because they have a nice pattern. For me, its absolutely necessary to have the best broodstock genetics to start with. For that we need breeders to be forthcoming about any possible genetic flaws in their parent fish.

 

[MarvinsReef]

man, I was just about to start a thread similar to this. :wink:

Picasso's are my favorite... obviously.. :hammer:

I also enjoy seeing the different kinds of Percs/Occys out there. I like Extreme Snow Onyx, Snowflakes/Black Ice, and adult Onyx.

 

[btkrausen]

Awesome insight Kris, thanks. Unfortunately my Black Ice pair didn't make it after they contracted ich from another fish I put in the DT, which I think killed my liking of these guys. Plus, with them becoming "popular" its kind of my instinct to start liking something different.

I like the Akindynos clownfish that I posted above because they are different than most others. I do like those ORA Spotcinctus above, but I can't see myself buying them. I think Akindynos are the only orange clowns I'd buy right now. I also like those Black Snowflake ones too.

 

[Troylee]

Picasso here.... Any variation you can throw at me is cool.... There is a clown around here called game over I will own one day haha.... It's just the sickest ever... You know who you are...:xd:

 

[MarvinsReef]

We need to keep track of which breeds are Percula and Ocellaris hybrids. I'm begining to become a larger fan of the 'pure' ocellaris and 'pure' percula breeds. Over the years, this 'purity' will get muddled. So I've been trying to keep many of my broodstock pairs either percula or ocellaris.

Bryan, I will get you excited about designer clownfish again... I'm gonna do a photo spread for all my broodstock pairs, around 75 right now that I know will get people excited. Thats another thing I would like is to be able to see breeders broodstock pairs. I don't wanna add any fish to my broodstock without knowing what the parents look like. There are a lot of breeders out there who are breeding and selling fish from lower genetic quality parents just because they have a nice pattern. For me, its absolutely necessary to have the best broodstock genetics to start with. For that we need breeders to be forthcoming about any possible genetic flaws in their parent fish.

awesome Kris. what are the traits that is considered as having high quality genetic. I'm not a breeder and have paid little attention to clowns. I have always just enjoyed their patterns. I don't intend to breed any of my clowns but I wanna know more about this. I've been reading this from hardcore breeders that they only select the "best" clowns as their broodstock. I have no idea what that means. LoL. I mean, what do you guys look for? fins? mouth? etc??

 

[btkrausen]

awesome Kris. what are the traits that is considered as having high quality genetic. I'm not a breeder and have paid little attention to clowns. I have always just enjoyed their patterns. I don't intend to breed any of my clowns but I wanna know more about this. I've been reading this from hardcore breeders that they only select the "best" clowns as their broodstock. I have no idea what that means. LoL. I mean, what do you guys look for? fins? mouth? etc??

Great questions Marvin, I'm very interested in learning as well.

 

[MarvinsReef]

while we're at it, lemme add the few I enjoy seeing in my tank. :bigsmile:

 

[Alpha Aquaculture]

awesome Kris. what are the traits that is considered as having high quality genetic. I'm not a breeder and have paid little attention to clowns. I have always just enjoyed their patterns. I don't intend to breed any of my clowns but I wanna know more about this. I've been reading this from hardcore breeders that they only select the "best" clowns as their broodstock. I have no idea what that means. LoL. I mean, what do you guys look for? fins? mouth? etc??

I do this fulltime so its not a hobby anymore for me. After staring at hundreds of the best of the best clowns over the last year I have finally been able to 'see' the qualities that make a clownfish good or bad for breeding. Its not that I wasn't seeing the clowns before but I didn't know what to look for. I'll give a quick synopsis of the issues...

 

[MarvinsReef]

I do this fulltime so its not a hobby anymore for me. After staring at hundreds of the best of the best clowns over the last year I have finally been able to 'see' the qualities that make a clownfish good or bad for breeding. Its not that I wasn't seeing the clowns before but I didn't know what to look for. I'll give a quick synopsis of the issues...

awesome. thanks man. I'm looking forward to learning more about this topic.

 

[Alpha Aquaculture]

The main issue here is deformities. As simple as it could be put, is the clownfish beautiful or not? I've seen TONS of nice patterns, even crazy patterns, on super ugly fish. Deformities could be genetic, transferred from parent to offspring, or environmental, due to the water quality while the clowns are being raised. There is still a huge cloud above these issues and its hard to get straight answers from breeders but here's my take. If there are two clownfish raised together in the same tank and thus same conditions and one of them has flared gills (an environmental deformity), the clownfish has a greater predisposition to flared gills. They both grew up in the same tank and water why would only one have flared gills? So even environmental deformities are not acceptable because I'm not sure if we know how much of a component of those deformities is a genetic predisposition to deforming under those environmental conditions.

Some deformities:

Gills - flared, too short, pushed up from underneath, gills exposed causes greater chance for bacterial infections
Jaw - crooked, overbite, underbite, circular, fused open, does this impede on their ability to eat
Fins - pelvic fins are the #1 to look at, pectoral fins can also be small, small dosal/tall dorsal, do they swim funny because of their fins
Swim bladder - can the fish swim properly and 'float' in the water column with minimal effort?
Body Shape - Is the fish ugly? is the belly pushed up or is the head pinched? broken and healed bones
General deformities - any imaginable deformity is possible, I've seen wild clownfish harvested with no tail, but living in the wild.
Growth rate - do they grow at an average pace, are they stunted, forever stunted genetics

 

[MarvinsReef]

Some deformities:

Gills - flared, too short, pushed up from underneath, gills exposed causes greater chance for bacterial infections
Jaw - crooked, overbite, underbite, circular, fused open, does this impede on their ability to eat
Fins - pelvic fins are the #1 to look at, pectoral fins can also be small, small dosal/tall dorsal, do they swim funny because of their fins
Swim bladder - can the fish swim properly and 'float' in the water column with minimal effort?
Body Shape - Is the fish ugly? is the belly pushed up or is the head pinched? broken and healed bones
General deformities - any imaginable deformity is possible, I've seen wild clownfish harvested with no tail, but living in the wild.
Growth rate - do they grow at an average pace, are they stunted, forever stunted genetics

Kris, do you by any chance have a library of pics to find samples of the above compared to what a perfect one would look like?

 

[Alpha Aquaculture]

Kris, do you by any chance have a library of pics to find samples of the above compared to what a perfect one would look like?

We have been compiling information here but I'm not ready for the full educational spread quite yet as I am still learning and documenting. I'm also working on my breeding/raising clowns and gaining info from that. Also, I try very hard to not sell deformed fish so I don't see many of them in here. The thing is its all relative. Sometimes its so very slight you can barely see it.

 

[MableShwartz]

while we're at it, lemme add the few I enjoy seeing in my tank. :bigsmile:

What species of clowns are these Marvin? Sorry if you already said it! They're absolutely gorgeous! As for me, I enjoy the picassos, as well as pure gold stripe maroon, it would be really neat to see some hybridization of maroons, I don't know how, but in some way! I'm fully in support of tank-raised fish, however, if I could have one type of clown it would be a pair of mcculloch's clownfish!

 

[JasonPG]

The main issue here is deformities. As simple as it could be put, is the clownfish beautiful or not? I've seen TONS of nice patterns, even crazy patterns, on super ugly fish. Deformities could be genetic, transferred from parent to offspring, or environmental, due to the water quality while the clowns are being raised. There is still a huge cloud above these issues and its hard to get straight answers from breeders but here's my take. If there are two clownfish raised together in the same tank and thus same conditions and one of them has flared gills (an environmental deformity), the clownfish has a greater predisposition to flared gills. They both grew up in the same tank and water why would only one have flared gills? So even environmental deformities are not acceptable because I'm not sure if we know how much of a component of those deformities is a genetic predisposition to deforming under those environmental conditions.

Some deformities:

Gills - flared, too short, pushed up from underneath, gills exposed causes greater chance for bacterial infections
Jaw - crooked, overbite, underbite, circular, fused open, does this impede on their ability to eat
Fins - pelvic fins are the #1 to look at, pectoral fins can also be small, small dosal/tall dorsal, do they swim funny because of their fins
Swim bladder - can the fish swim properly and 'float' in the water column with minimal effort?
Body Shape - Is the fish ugly? is the belly pushed up or is the head pinched? broken and healed bones
General deformities - any imaginable deformity is possible, I've seen wild clownfish harvested with no tail, but living in the wild.
Growth rate - do they grow at an average pace, are they stunted, forever stunted genetics

This is good stuff. I agree completely with this post. I spend half my time culling any and every deformity.

I think just the fact that we're raising them in tanks has a lot to do with some of the physical defects, particularly the pinched heads and over/under bites. The fry wouldn't encounter solid glass walls during early development in nature.