freetareef
New member
fish growth is stoped due in large part by the concentration of a hormone in their enviorment.
Grading aquaculture clownfish
- Thread starter BonsaiNut
- Start date
Samcro
New member
i like the grading system and many of you have great points. my issue is would be to not make it so complicated that i would need a key to grade my clowns. I just started breeding. so i bought my fish because they were perfect specimins in my eyes. i did pass on a few pairs. I am not out to breed 10k occ, infact i dont have any cheaper clowns. i started out thinking to keep and grow more of the higher priced clowns. 2 reasons becuase it better to sell 100 higher priced clowns then to try and sell 1000 to make the same $$ off them. this way #2 i can concentrate on smaller batches and take care and pride in the quality offspring i produce. i got 9 pairs now and i am done when i get to 10. hehe the 10th spot is reserved for a pair of Tricinctus. i want people to enjoy other clowns besides nemo, snows and weak misbars.
I do get upset at everyone over the misbar craze. i see them selling for more then more perfect clowns. ORA standards has gone to crap. i bought 2 baby snows from them and neither lasted a week. i guess its all about demand also, beginners want cool stuff and the snowflake type is the cuurrent craze.
also, it would be a waste of time to get ora and other to adhere to a standard. profit will always be the deciding factor on what they sell.
if there is a consensus on the standards i would be on board 100% and follow it. can only lead to better clowns for all.
now i just need some of my pairs to start laying. hehe
I do get upset at everyone over the misbar craze. i see them selling for more then more perfect clowns. ORA standards has gone to crap. i bought 2 baby snows from them and neither lasted a week. i guess its all about demand also, beginners want cool stuff and the snowflake type is the cuurrent craze.
also, it would be a waste of time to get ora and other to adhere to a standard. profit will always be the deciding factor on what they sell.
if there is a consensus on the standards i would be on board 100% and follow it. can only lead to better clowns for all.
now i just need some of my pairs to start laying. hehe
I am much in agreement, especially on what Phil said,
I think all breeders should have a good sized tank with a panther or miniatus grouper to solve the question of is it sellable or not. Let it be the judge.
I am going to check out Donis thread, you got me curious, and I like those varieties also.
I think all breeders should have a good sized tank with a panther or miniatus grouper to solve the question of is it sellable or not. Let it be the judge.
I am going to check out Donis thread, you got me curious, and I like those varieties also.
BonsaiNut
Premium Member
If you want to euthanize a fish humanely, and are looking for solutions, try dropping it into a glass of vodka. It works, but is a little pricey depending on the brand. You can actually use vodka as a local anesthetic to catch reef fishes. Unlike cyanide, it does not harm the environment (or kill coral). It isn't used because it is much more expensive than cyanide, not because it doesn't work better.
Well, if the culls go to a grouper they made a meal for something so wernt a total waste.
I did check out donies site, and its an eyeful, beautiful fish, I think that the gal has her act together very well.
I am for a grading system, I dont think it is worth the time on the guppy clowns, but for the rest I think that serious breeders would do well with it, the problem is in setting up standards, which will take a LOT of discussion just from what I read here.
I am pretty much where SAMCRO is, I used to breed clowns, semi commercial, now just wanting to have fun. That will happen. And lost more to work with now. I will be watching this grading thread to see what happens. I like the idea.
I did check out donies site, and its an eyeful, beautiful fish, I think that the gal has her act together very well.
I am for a grading system, I dont think it is worth the time on the guppy clowns, but for the rest I think that serious breeders would do well with it, the problem is in setting up standards, which will take a LOT of discussion just from what I read here.
I am pretty much where SAMCRO is, I used to breed clowns, semi commercial, now just wanting to have fun. That will happen. And lost more to work with now. I will be watching this grading thread to see what happens. I like the idea.
WaffleWalffle22
Zoa Extreemist
Wow. That's just completely wrong. I'm a molecular biologist by trade. Everything about "guppy" clowns is artificial selection. True, they have not been cloned or genetically modified. But they are still artificially selected. They are not found naturally in the wild.
Red-heads? Brown-heads? Huh?
BonsiaNut - Vodka? Oh man. Dare I ask how you discovered this?:beer:
WaffleWaffle22 - And I thought it was just me. I have a bicinctus that I raised from hatch 5 years ago. It is barely 2 inches. Looks fine. No deformities. Just no growth. A mutt (grade Z6?).
Dan
freetareef
New member
And how can that be fixed?
lots of water changes, or genetically altering them...lol
shabreeson
New member
any of you guys think the lower quality clowns are due to inbreeding?
phender
Active member
The problems we see for the most part (bulldog face, flared gill plates, mis-marking, poor color) are all 100% environmentally caused.
I don't know how many generations of clowns places like ORA have, but realize that you don't have to have a lot of breeders to flood a local market. Once you get production rolling you can produce 200-300 clowns every two weeks from one pair for over ten years, if you have the facility and time/staff to keep up with production.
You could produce a whole lot of clowns with just 3 or 4 first generation pairs. From my understanding, you don't start seeing problems in fish until you reach about the 5th generation of inbreeding.
WaffleWalffle22
Zoa Extreemist
I've been genetically altering them every week.
EDIT: Sorry, I was zoned out when I posted this but it was too funny to erase. I meant I've been doing weekly water changes.
poor color is caused by diet, that can be changed. a few weeks of cyclopeeze will do wonders.
mis baring is generally rearing conditions prior to and just after meta in cb fish. this will not transfer to offspring. generally we all agree wild broadstock would be better however. i wouldnt worry about mis bars as potential broadstock. (exceptions will transfer such as genetic mis barring -snows, picassso's, etc)
flared gills is believed to be cause by bacteria in the rearing tank's. this wont transfer to future generations. it doesn't effect the fish.
bulldogging is caused by facial damage to the soft cartilage when a fry is still very young. greener water can reduce this by keeping them off the sides as well as a much larger rearing tank/ tub.
crocked jaws, hunchback's, twisted spines, shortys, etc should be culled. this is genetic and will transfer. can be caused by inbreeding (5th gen or more is considered bad) theres no reason for people to be releasing these. i agree ora has really gone to crap.
mis baring is generally rearing conditions prior to and just after meta in cb fish. this will not transfer to offspring. generally we all agree wild broadstock would be better however. i wouldnt worry about mis bars as potential broadstock. (exceptions will transfer such as genetic mis barring -snows, picassso's, etc)
flared gills is believed to be cause by bacteria in the rearing tank's. this wont transfer to future generations. it doesn't effect the fish.
bulldogging is caused by facial damage to the soft cartilage when a fry is still very young. greener water can reduce this by keeping them off the sides as well as a much larger rearing tank/ tub.
crocked jaws, hunchback's, twisted spines, shortys, etc should be culled. this is genetic and will transfer. can be caused by inbreeding (5th gen or more is considered bad) theres no reason for people to be releasing these. i agree ora has really gone to crap.
BonsaiNut
Premium Member
While I don't disagree with most of what you say, I don't think all color is due to diet. It certainly isn't with freshwater fish. That's a little like saying regardless of breeding and parentage, all clowns will ALWAYS have velvet black blacks, brilliant clear whites, and deep rich reds and oranges - as long as you feed them good food. However I admit I don't have any proof. It might be an interesting experiment to find a really poor quality captive raised clown and a nice full color wild-caught individual, pair them up, and see how close you can get to getting the captive raised one to match the same colors as wild caught.
I have to say that when I walk into a LFS and see a clown, I can normally tell in 1/10th of a second whether it is wild caught or captive-raised. The best compliment I can give a captive raised fish is that it looks "as good as" wild caught. Compare this to freshwater fish, where most fish strain now look significantly "better than" wild caught.
WaffleWalffle22
Zoa Extreemist
I understand why you want to only breed prettiful fish, but that doesn't mean somebody can't enjoy the crooked jaws, hunchbacks, twisted-spines, or the little fishes. I personally think the "shorties" are cute and it would be a cool trait to breed in a clown. They have stubby ocellaris as a selectively bred fish, so why can't we breed a small line of clowns?
phender
Active member
In the case of clowns, the genetic component for orange color is already there, but they need the proper food pigments (astaxanthin) to get them to wild caught color. In the early 90's Vibra-Gro (produced by a research facility later bought by Red Sea then by ORA and is not the same anymore) was one of the first foods to include astaxanthin in their mix. I was able to pick some up at a trade show before it was on the market. Most the stores in my area had stopped carrying CB clowns because their colors were so bad. Because I was using the Vibra-Gro you couldn't tell mine from WC and they were easy to sell.
Cyclop-eeze is one of the better foods on the market now to enhance the color of your baby/adult clowns, but many flake/pellet foods contain astaxanthin as well.
Costa reefing
New member
As far as crooked jaws go, look at Rod's male. I mean, c'mon the little guy looks like he got sucker punched by Rocky. At the end of the day though look at all the beautiful baby percs that clown has been father to.
trueblackpercula
New member
what is it with everyone posting donis fish???? its like free advertising on the net at reefcentrals expense....am i the only one that sees what the hidden agend is
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