breeding clowns - misbarred

[vaporize]

Hi,

I am just wondering, why are there so many misbarred A.ocellaris from tank raised breeders?

Would this be caused by inbreeding of these clownfish or is the percentage of misbarred clownfish in the same portion in nature?

If not, why is the portion of misbarred clownfish in higher portion with tank breeding?

Does misbarred clown parents produce misbarred offsprings?

Thanks

 

[MorandiWine]

I think that I remember hearing something about tweaking the water quality while they are larvae. I could be wrong though, hopefully someone will chime in and let us know.

I think that it would be pretty neat to "play" with different patterns. Just look at the naked clowns that ORA puts out and the snowflake percs too.

tyler

 

[JHardman]

The primary reason you see many more mis bars from CB is that many more fish survive to be purchased.

It has been speculated that <1% of a nest makes it to a collectable size, who knows what percentage of that actually gets collected. While in a CB system, even someone that doesn't know best practices can get 10% survival.

Do the math...

 

[vaporize]

that does not explain why the misbarred one does not get collected from the wild.

Like say, there are 30% each batch get misbarred. There should be probability that they will get collected even if 1% survived.

Can somebody confirm the misbar v.s. fullbar % in their batches?

Thanks

 

[BonsaiNut]

No one knows the exact reason, though it is much easier to produce misbarred clowns than perfect clowns. I know a breeder that sells $100K captive clowns a year and only the absolute most perfect water conditions and right food will create a spawn that is better than 50% properly barred. The good news is that many people seem to prefer misbarred clowns so pet stores will stock them - if this were not the case not sure you'd be able to make a commercially viable business breeding clowns (at least in the current state of technology / success).

 

[JHardman]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6702103#post6702103 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by vaporize
that does not explain why the misbarred one does not get collected from the wild.

Like say, there are 30% each batch get misbarred. There should be probability that they will get collected even if 1% survived.

First and foremost, they are collected from the wild. If you are under the impression that there are no WC mis barred clowns, you are mistaken.

So lets use your 30% rate... An A. ocellaris pair lays 1000 eggs, they all hatch in a CB tank. Of the 1000, 300 have mis barring and 700 do not. Of the 1000 that hatched 10% make it to saleable size. Assuming even distribution of death between misbarred and not misbarred, that leaves 30 misbarred and 70 normally barred fish. Now apply that same thinking to WC with 1% survival, you end up with 3 misbars and 7 normally barred.

Now lets assume that collectors, exporters and importers all have compsired to get the best fish possible to their customers and that part of being "best" is appearance, which includes fully barred fish. So a collector comes upon a group of fish, 30% are misbarred and 70% are normally barred, he is going to take from the 70% side and not the 30% side. And so on and so on.

Now lets get real here for a moment and get out of fansty land of thought expariments.

1) No one knows the rate at which clownfish produce misbarrs either in captivity or in the wild. While it maybe possible to determine the percentage on average of the number of misbarred clowns in a captive breeding program, it is impossible to calculate it in the wild. Even the calculation that could be done in the CB world would be misleading as... see #2.

2) There are things at play with misbarring at the genetic level that defies the conventional thinking on genetics and the passing on of traits.

3) The idea that there are more misbarred CB fish than WC fish is a wife's tale that is true and based on bad thinking/logic.

4) That misbarring has no effect on the fish what so ever. It is a mute point as far as the fish is concerned. The only that is at issue is the subjective attitudes of people that see the fish.

 

[Rod Buehler]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6702683#post6702683 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BonsaiNut
No one knows the exact reason, though it is much easier to produce misbarred clowns than perfect clowns. I know a breeder that sells $100K captive clowns a year and only the absolute most perfect water conditions and right food will create a spawn that is better than 50% properly barred. The good news is that many people seem to prefer misbarred clowns so pet stores will stock them - if this were not the case not sure you'd be able to make a commercially viable business breeding clowns (at least in the current state of technology / success).

FWIW, I wish I could get a few more mis barred. My pair (mis barred female) produces much more perfect bars, vs mis barred. If I had to guess I would guess 65% good, and 35% mis...

 

[vaporize]

I am not trying to say misbar == bad. I am just thinking on a species definition and propagation.

Like BosnaiNut said, if the majority of clownfish are misbarred, there will be more misbar in teh wild therefore they will be labelled as a variation. And if people really wanted misbarred clownfish more than full barred, there will be more collected due to its demand.

In fact, if full bar is less rare, they will decrease in abundance in the wild. I would think full bar is actually a dominant trade that is always displayed in the wild but through inbreeding captive raise, there are more misbarred recessive genes that are expressing.

With that assumption, the other thing with misbarred fish is that, since they are more rare, people will be more likely to collect them as rare variation like the black ocellaris.

JHardman, what % of your batch would you say are misbarred? Just trying to get an understanding of the percentage.

 

[phender]

FWIW: When I was raising ocellaris around 10 years ago, the % of misbarrs decreased with my success rate. When I was raising 50% of the hatch my misbarrs were almost 50%. Later, when I was able to raise 90% of my hatch to market size, I was getting almost no misbarrs.

While I know that misbarrs in the wild are not uncommon, it would be hard to convince me and even harder to prove, that misbarrs occur in the wild as often as they do in TR situations.

 

[Jovreefer]

IMO another reason there are less mis-bar'd collected in the wild is survival of the fittest (im in no way saying they are less healthy...read below for explination)

A clown has stripes for one reason, to hide in anemone and look like tenticals. A mis bar'd clown is not going to look like tenticals so its going to be picked off quicker than the full bar'd ones.

 

[JHardman]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6703867#post6703867 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by vaporize
JHardman, what % of your batch would you say are misbarred? Just trying to get an understanding of the percentage.

Depends on the pair they came from. Some as little as 5% some as much as 95%.

Your idea that pressure on collection has influence on the number of misbarred fish in the wild is incorrect.

For example the "snowflake" A. ocellaris comes from two normally barred parents. See my last post, point #2.