chad vossen
Active Member
I would like to share one of our most ambitious projects that we are working on. This project will involve artificially hybridizing the multibar angelfish and the venuesta angelfish to create the famous hybrid, found here - https://reefbuilders.com/2016/10/16/multibar-venustus-hybrid-angelfish/. For the last couple years we have been working hard to acquire the broodstock, which has proven very difficult. Anyone that's tried getting multibar to survive will know what I'm talking about. Fortunately, with the help of Diver's Den, we were able to purchase a healthy pair of multibar from the Christmas islands. Our Venuesta pair was also purchased through Diver's Den as well.
Both pairs are kept separately. I've seen other angelfish breeders house multibar and venuesta together in hopes they'll hybridize naturally, however I don't think this will ever work. Angelfish are pretty smart when it comes to picking their mates. I could see the potential for hybridization if two pairs spawned in the same system, however the odds of raising the one or two hybridized eggs in the batch are pretty slim. We had to come up with a better method.
For a few months, we worked with Joculator angelfish collected out of a client's reef tank. During our collection trials we found ways to collect the eggs with near 0% fertility, and other methods that allowed near 100% fertility. We plan to apply these methods with the paracentropyge to hybridize entire spawns.
Here's a video of a joculator angelfish that we nearly raised.
The multibar angelfish have already started courtship, so we are hoping to see eggs very soon.
I'll update this thread as we go, hopefully we have exciting updates soon!
Both pairs are kept separately. I've seen other angelfish breeders house multibar and venuesta together in hopes they'll hybridize naturally, however I don't think this will ever work. Angelfish are pretty smart when it comes to picking their mates. I could see the potential for hybridization if two pairs spawned in the same system, however the odds of raising the one or two hybridized eggs in the batch are pretty slim. We had to come up with a better method.
For a few months, we worked with Joculator angelfish collected out of a client's reef tank. During our collection trials we found ways to collect the eggs with near 0% fertility, and other methods that allowed near 100% fertility. We plan to apply these methods with the paracentropyge to hybridize entire spawns.
Here's a video of a joculator angelfish that we nearly raised.
The multibar angelfish have already started courtship, so we are hoping to see eggs very soon.
I'll update this thread as we go, hopefully we have exciting updates soon!
