Designer Clownfish - What's your taste?

[MarvinsReef]

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!

Picasso's.. both parents were B-grade but have been producing some awesome A-A+.

 

[Alpha Aquaculture]

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.

I respect your responsibility for not just selling them off. Glad you joined the discussion too. I would bet pinched heads and many types of over/under bites are not caused by tank walls. I do agree with you. I do think that chin bumps are whats caused by tank walls. They go nuts and bang into a wall and then there is a chin bump. Sometimes they heal completely and are gone, sometimes they heal into a bump. I can't picture in my head how pinched head could be caused by tank walls, or many over/under bites. I could see an over/under bite getting worse and extended similar to how a chin bump forms and then heals. I've heard that pinched heads are an environmental deformity caused by water quality from breeders that are producing and selling fish from female's that have pinched heads with babies that are all fine. I hope more people come on here and give their opinion because its very hard to create good conversations about these topics. I would like to hear what you think about what I said too. Do you basically think that pinched heads and over/under bites are caused during the first 2-3 weeks of their lives bumping into the glass?

 

[Coral Pimp]

dalmation clowns is my taste

 

[Reef Breeders Verified Sponsor]

I really want a platinum or Wyoming white, I already have snowflakes, so more is out of the question in the DT. Perhaps a partner for the lonely "normal" perc in my frag system

 

[Russellaqua]

I tend to prefer the natural species and am very partial to clarkii clowns, but I also really like the black ice clowns. They're very striking. The platinums and wyoming whites aren't really my taste. Too much white on them for me. I love that the designer fish are tank-bred and raised, but I do worry about the inbreeding. I don't know that much about clown breeding, but how many pairs of wild fish gave rise to each designer variety? With a very limited gene pool there can be internal problems that do not manifest themselves on the outside. An example from cat breeding: Persian cats are often stricken with PKD (polycystic kidney disease) and this can dramatically shorten their lives. Only an ultra-sound of each parent's kidneys prior to breeding can eliminate this from the kittens. We aren't able to do this with fish. Maybe a large number of pairs of wild fish gave rise to each design and it's not a worry. Anyone know how many original parents per variety there are?

 

[shred5]

Honestly I do not like most of the designer clownfish and think most are ugly.