ORA Breeds

[Titus77]

How are naked clownfish, picasso clownfish, and snowflake clownfish made?

 

[Premnas]

They probably keep breeding mutations to each other. Look at what the've done with dogs.

 

[phender]

I am pretty sure that the naked clowns were produced by selective breeding. Ocellaris clowns with very little white were bred and the babies that had the least amount of white were bred and so on. Even now only a small portion of a single spawn have little enough white to be sold as "naked clowns". These fish are not necessarily inbred.

The picasso clowns come from one original wild caught percula male that had extreme "picasso" markings. He was paired with an onyx perc female. The babies that most resembled the original male were then used to produce more picasso babies. Wild caught picasso clowns still turn up every once in a while, but I don't think that ORA has incorporated any in their breeding program. If they have not, then the picasso clowns are all inbred off the same original male, however inbreeding did not cause the markings, it is just used to produce more individuals with the similar markings.

Snowflakes were originally marketed by Tropic Marin in England. These fish reportedly come from a normal pair of ocellaris that just happen to produce a few snowflake babies in each of their spawns. Snowflake bred to snowflake produces a good percentage of snowflake babies. The ORA line comes from the Tropic Marin snowflakes. All snowflakes can be traced back to the original two normal looking wild caught parents (so they are inbred), but again, the inbreeding did not cause the color pattern, it is just the easiest way to perpetuate it.

We used to have an ORA employee on this list, but I haven't seen him for awhile. If I have misspoken I hope that he can correct me.

 

[Titus77]

Wow. Thanks Phender. That is pretty much all I wanted to know...and some! Which are easiest to breed/rear?
> A pair of Naked Clowns
> A pair of Grade A Picassos
> A pair of Snowflakes

How much would a good price per fish be for the Nakeds? Picassos? Snowflakes? Thanks.

 

[Chelsey]

Snowflakes and naked clowns are both ocellaris...which tend to be easier (at least from what I've heard) than perculas (picassos). I don't know about the naked clowns, but picassos could be around $100 each for grade A (connecting 2nd and 3rd bars), grade B I've heard of $65 each. Snowflakes, if you can find them, are no less than $150 each, closer to $200.

 

[joe1584]

divers den has a pair of naked for 129.99

 

[Slakker]

The only LFS around me that's ever had naked ocellaris was selling them for $90 a pop. "Grade B" picassos ran about the same.

 

[NCSUsalt]

it all depends on store mark-up, the wholesale on nakeds is around $15 each direct from ORA. grade B picassos are $25 and the grade A's are $50

 

[Heterodonut]

Thanks for the info NCSUsalt! I always get annoyed when I ask a store manager what their wholesale cost is for a fish, so that I can try to figure out if they are paying to much overhead (mostly for ignorant staff), and they reply it is none of my business.

 

[JeffReef]

The nakeds are fairly cheap compared to Picassos.

The ORA nakeds sells for around $34 here, while the ORA Picassos run around $100 a piece.

 

[vaporize]

Can anybody tell me why nobody else is breeding naked aside from ORA?

there are even people breeding picasso and there sure is less picasso being sold 3 years ago than naked.

 

[Heterodonut]

Vaporize, I think part of the answer to your question is the demand and price issue. There has been a great deal of interest/hype over Picasso clowns, and the price both at wholesale and retail has remained high. Plus, one of the appealing things about Picasso's is that they all look different, as opposed to naked clowns where most people would say if you've seen one, you've seen them all. I think if more people were saying I've just got to have naked clowns, I'd be breeding them along with several others.