Designer clowns... Why?

[ThRoewer]

For those of you who still don't believe! Here is a paper on mutating fish to get more meat per fish! Designer fish have been chemically mutated!

http://bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2164-14-786

This is just sick :furious:

True, it's been proven that chemical mutation can even effect human embryos, I would think in ornamental fish breeding, selective breeding is still the preferred method though.

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Maybe a thousand years ago when the Chinese produced all those crazy goldfish forms, but since gene splicing became cost effective it has been used with fish as well - or how do you think they produced those glow fish:
http://www.reef2rainforest.com/2012/11/09/genetically-engineered-angels-shown-in-taipei-taiwan/

... I guess that will be one of the next thing to come ... glow in the dark clownfish :headwalls:

 

[SeaCucumberFan]

:facepalm: You humans. :facepalm:
Always messing up what isn't supposed to be messed up.

Ok let's see the positive side of genetic engineering:
-Reef safe everything
-Freshwater starfish
-Umm other good stuff.

Stay positive! :wavehand:

 

[raythepilot]

You all realize that this attraction to GMO fish is just marketing? That's why they call them "designer fish".
People will pay more for a polo shirt with an alligator on the lapel then for the exact same shirt with nothing on the lapel. (I know I am dating myself here.)
Instead of calling them designer fish and adding to the marketing aura, call them what they are scientifically, "mutated fish".

 

[SeaCucumberFan]

Mutated fish sounds too normal for me. I'll call them invaders

 

[ThRoewer]

I call them over priced feeder fish.

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[nanoreefer1000]

If designer clowns have good genetics and proven lineage, I like them. I'd buy AL ROD infrared picassos any day of the week, but random ones with deformities? No. Overall I'm fine with it because I personally can't change it. Whatever, I suppose.

 

[RyanSweatt2004]

The only designer clowns I like are the Lightning maroon clowns and even they are deformed 90% of the time. You pretty much end up with a blob fish with cool markings unless you get lucky enough to find one that doesn't look like a pug faced blob with short fins and a hump back. Wild clowns are so much more beautiful than these mutants we see flooding the markets in my opinion.

 

[OrionN]

While there are large scales effort to induced mutation in other fish species where potential for commercial profit is high. Clown fish profit potential is too low for people to actively trying to induce mutations as raythepilot indicated. I eat my word if Ray can come up with literature that indicated that even some of the mutation in clownfish are anything but incidental.
These process are still fairly new. Glow fish are genetically modified fish. The color protein genes from jellyfish were patch onto albino fishes.

 

[ThRoewer]

The only designer clowns I like are the Lightning maroon clowns and even they are deformed 90% of the time. You pretty much end up with a blob fish with cool markings unless you get lucky enough to find one that doesn't look like a pug faced blob with short fins and a hump back. Wild clowns are so much more beautiful than these mutants we see flooding the markets in my opinion.

The original lighting maroons are not designer clownfish, but offspring of one wild lightning maroon that was found in PNG. So, as long as they are paired only with PNG maroons there is nothing "designer" about them or their offspring.

But if they get mixed with yellow stripe maroons you get designer hybrids.


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[raythepilot]

While there are large scales effort to induced mutation in other fish species where potential for commercial profit is high. Clown fish profit potential is too low for people to actively trying to induce mutations as raythepilot indicated. I eat my word if Ray can come up with literature that indicated that even some of the mutation in clownfish are anything but incidental.
These process are still fairly new. Glow fish are genetically modified fish. The color protein genes from jellyfish were patch onto albino fishes.

So you agree that chemical and physical methods can be used to generate GMOs that are commercially profitable?

Well think about this.

There are quite a few "Mom and Pop" breeders that sell to the LFS near me. None of them have seen any variants in their clown fish. That is to be expected, as mutation are quite uncommon.

Now if you go to the Xxx website, they have dozens of clown variations. Are they just lucky? Suppose they found a chemical or physical process that increases the number of color mutations in clown fish, are they going to tell anybody about this process?

If you can sell a plain vanilla clown for $10 and a "designer clown for $100 would that be enough market incentive?

The local breeders think so and they think Xxx is doing just that.

 

[sde1500]

And they're fish so they are really dumb. They practice incest which is illegal.

On topic, some are pretty darn cool, others aren't so much. I think what is worse is some that are sold that are deformed. That is the breeder putting profit over quality, which is really unfortunate.

 

[OrionN]

So you agree that chemical and physical methods can be used to generate GMOs that are commercially profitable?

Well think about this.

There are quite a few "Mom and Pop" breeders that sell to the LFS near me. None of them have seen any variants in their clown fish. That is to be expected, as mutation are quite uncommon.

Now if you go to the Xxx website, they have dozens of clown variations. Are they just lucky? Suppose they found a chemical or physical process that increases the number of color mutations in clown fish, are they going to tell anybody about this process?

If you can sell a plain vanilla clown for $10 and a "designer clown for $100 would that be enough market incentive?

The local breeders think so and they think Xxx is doing just that.

Just because you said it does not mean it is true. Do you have any ideal what is involved here?. A few thousand here and there is not incentive enough.

Most mutation,if occurred are not good. The organism usually die. Only once in a long while the mutation does not kill the organism. Of these that survive, then they have to raise the fish to see what trait result from it and see if it is worthwhile. Then they have to breed these fish to produce offspring.

Patch the color producing gene of jelly fish to one of the albino tetra, grow them then breed these tetra is an entirely different then trying to induce mutation to the germ cell of the fish to see what the result is.

By the way genetic of genes occurred in pair not trio. XX or Xx or xx. Not Xxx.
Some traits have 3(maybe more) genotypes, not 2. For example human AB blood type, on our chromosomes we can have O (none) , A or B. Combination of these we can have O blood type, A, B or AB blood type.

 

[gavinbree]

It's more likely they have a massive facility to breed clownfish, more numbers increase the chance of mutations, not to mention you would have to grow them out for weeks to get an idea of their markings.

The concept of colour mutations is the same in most animal breeds you get dominant and recessive genes and just a matter of breeding those traits in and out to get a desired look.

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[MarkW64]

It's more likely they have a massive facility to breed clownfish, more numbers increase the chance of mutations, not to mention you would have to grow them out for weeks to get an idea of their markings.

This -- and of course they might also purchase unusual/rare/mutant fish from others to use as breeding stock.

Personally, I generally prefer natural looking "wild-type" clowns.

 

[ThRoewer]

All these designer clownfish sprung up within the last 10 to 15 years.
IME it takes at a bare minimum a year from egg to spawning adult, probably more.
Just based on that it is quite unlikely that they would have gotten this far in such short time without playing Dr Frankenstein.

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[raythepilot]

Just because you said it does not mean it is true. Do you have any ideal what is involved here?. A few thousand here and there is not incentive enough.

Most mutation,if occurred are not good. The organism usually die. Only once in a long while the mutation does not kill the organism. Of these that survive, then they have to raise the fish to see what trait result from it and see if it is worthwhile. Then they have to breed these fish to produce offspring.

Patch the color producing gene of jelly fish to one of the albino tetra, grow them then breed these tetra is an entirely different then trying to induce mutation to the germ cell of the fish to see what the result is.

By the way genetic of genes occurred in pair not trio. XX or Xx or xx. Not Xxx.
Some traits have 3(maybe more) genotypes, not 2. For example human AB blood type, on our chromosomes we can have O (none) , A or B. Combination of these we can have O blood type, A, B or AB blood type.

1. I know that genes come in pairs. When I used the pseudonym Xxx (a company name) I did so because I didn't want the besmirch the reputation of a company that produces a gazillion designer clowns for big money.

2. What you say is absolutely true. But that is the same process you have to go through with a natural or chemically induced mutation.

3. Chemically induced gene mutations are common and easy to produce.

4. If I were Monsanto or Xxx I would be using the process to make a bunch of new corn or clown fish strains.

I'm not sure why you feel that clown fish are sacred and couldn't possibly be GMOed the same way as corn?

 

[OrionN]

All these designer clownfish sprung up within the last 10 to 15 years.
IME it takes at a bare minimum a year from egg to spawning adult, probably more.
Just based on that it is quite unlikely that they would have gotten this far in such short time without playing Dr Frankenstein.

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So what are the mutations in clownfish?

 

[raythepilot]

Here are a bunch of clown mutations:

 

[phender]

There is no need to "produce" mutations in clownfish. The variation in color patterned is just selective breeding from a small number of wild caught clowns with unusual color patterns. Clowns only take about 6 months to reach breeding age and have 200 to 1000 babies every two weeks. It doesn't take very long to produce a lot of clowns with varied white color. Most of the "varieties" in the picture come from the variety in the same batch of babies.
There are no mutagens being used, just selective breeding and environmental manipulation. Mis-bars are very common when the water in your grow-out tanks is not clean. Some people have discovered how to manipulate that to produce no-bar clowns. Everything else is just selective breeding.

 

[phender]

The weird heads, flared gills and bulldog faces are not a result of mutation or inbreeding either. In the 80s and 90s when we were breeding clowns, mis-bars and deformities were a symptoms of bad husbandry. It still is today. When you clean up your water conditions and feed properly, all those problems magically go away.