What ever happened to the Lightning clownfish?

[Bluetangclan]

There was a big buzz about 5-6 years ago about a new color morph clownfish that was found that looked like lightning. The finder put it up to limited bid to the few big breeders of clownfish and I had heard on of them forked over about $30k for it. I have never seen the fish again. Has anyone heard anything about it?

 

[BeanMachine]

They are captive bred now... I think Sustainable Aquatics sells them. A few friends here in CA have a few. Their striping isn't as crazy as the original, but they still have a nice pattern. Still mean like any other Maroon clown though.

**Sorry maybe it was Sea and Reef... I think you'll need to get your LFS to order from either tho. I hope the link is OK, I'm not affiliated.

http://www.seaandreef.com/what-you-see-is-what-you-get

 

[Bluetangclan]

Didn't realize they were maroons. For some reason I had thought they were yet another Percula variant. Glad to see they were able to breed them successfully with that big of an original price tag.

 

[Chad Vossen]

The original fish was sold for much less than that, and carried the deal that babies would be sold back.
Those babies sold for lots of money on Ebay. First pair went for $16k

Sea and reef bought one of them. Paired it up with a spawning female from PNG that they had waiting. Shortly after they had spawns, which resulted in hundreds of lightnings.

The lightnings available now do not look like the original. This is because the stripes recede with age, and the older they get, the better the pattern becomes. In 3-5 years, the babies you see now will look very much like the original lightning. Older lightning offspring that have developed the same pattern as the original will likely sell for a lot more than what was paid for them.

 

[D-Nak]

Fortunately, I see them all over the place now, and the price has come down considerably. A couple of my LFS have pairs.

 

[m0nkie]

I just saw a few at my LFS.. I'm in the middle of a 150gallon build. the focus will be lightning maroons. will post picture later. (down the line later...)

a nice looking one still go for about $500 each.

my LFS is trying to mate a lightning maroon with a gold stripe maroon. I'll see how that turns out