White Clowns

iFisch

iFisch

New member
I was googling, as usual, and I've known about white clowns like snowflakes, Wyoming whites, etc. however, I saw some beautiful pictures of these fish, and I'm actually, pretty intrigued by the mass amounts of white. Initially, I was with 90% of the crowd, saying no way I'd spend that much on a single fish & "they're ugly".

As time has passed, I've become pretty precarious as to 50% beautiful livestock (both fish, corals, inverts), and 50% uniqueness, now. Before, it was like 80/20. I just wanted healthy, vibrant livestock.

Now that the seed has been planted, I find my self looking more and more at very unique items, despite how "beautiful" it is to MY eye. I like the aspect of chasing and hunting down very unique things.


So, I have considered maybe getting an all white clown. However, I'd like to get some more info on them. Particularly:

1. Are there any other clowns, other than the snowcasso's, snowflakes, Wyoming whites and ORA's "Platinum"?

2. Are there any breeders, or anyone with additional info, can help me out, figuring out how they keep certain colors, rid stripes, and make an all white body. I'm just wondering how certain clowns like Picasso's, and the like (above) become to be. Is it like genetically modifying and selective breeding? I just don't get how these fish become what they are today.


Just trying to fill my mind more clown info. :dance:

Also, I WILL be setting up a new 25g cube as well in the next month or so (depending on which clown I deice to get).
 
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fishkid6692 said:
theres these. but they sold for over 10k i think lol.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/2783/814070021d9f4bc6ej0.jpg

and white morphs are formed by selective breeding. i like snowflakes a lot but i also like the wyoming whites. there both ocellaris.
Click to expand...

Are those from Asia?


Can you, or anyone go into a little more detail, about how exactly accomplishing this, is done? How exactly do you get "extra" white, and very little to no orange or black, except the head, tail, and fins? I know some things are genetic, and my knowledge on this topic is extremely limited.

So I guess with enough time and money, one could, essentially, "make" their own colored clowns? Or am I not totally understanding?

For instance ORA will be releasing "naked" black clowns. Just like the all orange ones, just all black, no orange or white on the body, no stripes. Just jet black.
 
here's how it breaks down....
you have 2 types of clownfish that are relatively the same. A. percula, and A. Oscellaris.

each species has its own different characteristics such as dorsal spines, facial shape, coloration etc...

To avoid confusion i will list the names that come with each species:

A. oscellaris:
False percula
Darwin clowns (aka black and white)
snowflake clown (75%+ white)
Wyoming white (90%+ white) aka cotton candy clowns
Albino oscellaris have shown up on some forums but arent really in demand
Naked clowns (just have no stripes)

A percula:
True percula (just the normal joe shmo)
Onyx (extreme black coloration mostly between third and second stripe, sometimes more)
Picasso has the, well, picasso looking white painting on them as if their stripes were messed up
Snowcasso: is a relatively confusing name that a female breeder gave her extreme white picasso's. They are not a mix of snowflakes and picassos they are just extreme white picasso and hardly that in most cases.
Platinum (90%+ white)

another name that people tend to mix up is a misbar (mis-barred) clown. It is not the species of the fish it is a name to label them because of their lack of 3 normal stripes. Misbar clowns can be many different species.

Hope this helps you and if i forgot to add something please add to the list.
 
Ifisch, it is from selective breeding that most fish came available to the hobby. Back in the day a picasso would have been culled/destroyed because of their lack of demand. Say for every 10,000 perculas that are raised 100 of them have a broken white stripe patterning (picasso). Take that picasso and breed down the line. Its amazing what can come out of selective breeding, some very ugly and some very beautiful.
 
TEDALLEN80 said:
here's how it breaks down....
you have 2 types of clownfish that are relatively the same. A. percula, and A. Oscellaris.

each species has its own different characteristics such as dorsal spines, facial shape, coloration etc...

To avoid confusion i will list the names that come with each species:

A. oscellaris:
False percula
Darwin clowns (aka black and white)
snowflake clown (75%+ white)
Wyoming white (90%+ white) aka cotton candy clowns
Albino oscellaris have shown up on some forums but arent really in demand
Naked clowns (just have no stripes)

A percula:
True percula (just the normal joe shmo)
Onyx (extreme black coloration mostly between third and second stripe, sometimes more)
Picasso has the, well, picasso looking white painting on them as if their stripes were messed up
Snowcasso: is a relatively confusing name that a female breeder gave her extreme white picasso's. They are not a mix of snowflakes and picassos they are just extreme white picasso and hardly that in most cases.
Platinum (90%+ white)

another name that people tend to mix up is a misbar (mis-barred) clown. It is not the species of the fish it is a name to label them because of their lack of 3 normal stripes. Misbar clowns can be many different species.

Hope this helps you and if i forgot to add something please add to the list.
Click to expand...


Thank you. Still interested how you get the end product - 90%+ white body. I mean, it's not "normal" in any other fish, until now.

I mean how do you knock out colors, stripes, etc. and get a solid white body, but keep the orange/black fins, tail and head? Are these parents, cross bred or something?
 
TEDALLEN80 said:
Ifisch, it is from selective breeding that most fish came available to the hobby. Back in the day a picasso would have been culled/destroyed because of their lack of demand. Say for every 10,000 perculas that are raised 100 of them have a broken white stripe patterning (picasso). Take that picasso and breed down the line. Its amazing what can come out of selective breeding, some very ugly and some very beautiful.
Click to expand...

So then you're saying it's just a roll of the dice - until you get a WW?

This is my first attempt to "discuss" breeding, in any way or form, so be easy on me. :)

My knowledge on breeding, is extremely limited. Obviously.
 
from my gathering ...we will use a platinum for an example. The platinum has said to be 4th generation. leading up to that was 3 different pairs. Please do not quote me i am sure this is wrong, but its an example to how to explain the coloration

generation 1: onyx vs onyx
generation 2: Gen1 outcome vs Picasso
generation 3: gen 2 outcome (should be onyx/picasso in theory) vs picasso
Generation 4: Product platinum

Now as for the coloration on the head, fins, etc....its all in the genetic code written by the fish. Some say you have better looking babies with wild caught pairs. You never know. Most of the ornamental trade has been trial and error
 
iFisch said:
So then you're saying it's just a roll of the dice - until you get a WW?

This is my first attempt to "discuss" breeding, in any way or form, so be easy on me. :)

My knowledge on breeding, is extremely limited. Obviously.
Click to expand...
Rumor has it that sea-quest hatcheries has a single pair or ocsellaris that just produce these randomly. So yeah i would say roll of the dice.

I breed clowns on and off and no 2 fish will give you the same results. I have had a nice picasso with an onyx and got nothing but normal striped perculas. I have had 2 normal colored perculas and got 30% picasso. So yeah i say its mostly roll of the dice
 
TEDALLEN80 said:
from my gathering ...we will use a platinum for an example. The platinum has said to be 4th generation. leading up to that was 3 different pairs. Please do not quote me i am sure this is wrong, but its an example to how to explain the coloration

generation 1: onyx vs onyx
generation 2: Gen1 outcome vs Picasso
generation 3: gen 2 outcome (should be onyx/picasso in theory) vs picasso
Generation 4: Product platinum

Now as for the coloration on the head, fins, etc....its all in the genetic code written by the fish. Some say you have better looking babies with wild caught pairs. You never know. Most of the ornamental trade has been trial and error
Click to expand...

That makes sense.

However, what I DON'T understand is:

CQuest - or shall I say OG, says its been "5 years in the making". So if your example is correct, how can you get that outcome in such short years? I have read it can take extended periods of time just for them to pair. And even longer before you have your first batch. I just don't see how they can do this so quickly, or am I mistaken?
 
TEDALLEN80 said:
Rumor has it that sea-quest hatcheries has a single pair or ocsellaris that just produce these randomly. So yeah i would say roll of the dice.

I breed clowns on and off and no 2 fish will give you the same results. I have had a nice picasso with an onyx and got nothing but normal striped perculas. I have had 2 normal colored perculas and got 30% picasso. So yeah i say its mostly roll of the dice
Click to expand...

it's not a roll of the dice. the reason your "normal" percs are producing picassos is because somewhere down the line they had a piccaso parent. it has a lot to do with selective breeding and genes. i was going to experiment with this in the future. i am going to see what happens when a wyoming white breeds with an onyx perc. i am hoping something cool will happen. but who knows.
 
iFisch said:
That makes sense.

However, what I DON'T understand is:

CQuest - or shall I say OG, says its been "5 years in the making". So if your example is correct, how can you get that outcome in such short years? I have read it can take extended periods of time just for them to pair. And even longer before you have your first batch. I just don't see how they can do this so quickly, or am I mistaken?
Click to expand...

Hi,
I have been working with guppies genetics a lot when I worked in that ornamental fish farm.
What you do is cross breeding the form that you want until you get what you want.. to simplify things.
and than breed the result with another genetic line to make them healthier.
 
iFisch said:
That makes sense.

However, what I DON'T understand is:

CQuest - or shall I say OG, says its been "5 years in the making". So if your example is correct, how can you get that outcome in such short years? I have read it can take extended periods of time just for them to pair. And even longer before you have your first batch. I just don't see how they can do this so quickly, or am I mistaken?
Click to expand...

ocean gallery is just a retailer so it could be wrong. and also C-quest has special breeding set ups and i'm sure they know a few tricks to get them to spawn quicker. they have been doing this for a long time. bill addison opened a lot of doors in breeding marine ornamentals.
 
its possible to get fish to breed very young. If you are a profesional its what your do. If you put a 9month old male with a spawnign female the little bugger will be breeding under a year possibly, you have to understand at a place like ORA, collecting larva is an all day job.

I actually spoke with one of the people at ORA not long ago, about some picasso percula bidness in part of that conversation was the guy explaining platinums to me .. a few months before they were released.

He was saying how the F4 picasso's were all white and that have something beyond that .. here is the break down

Onyx perc x Picasso (the first picasso) this is them

picassopercula.jpg


These fish are considered F0 , they had a low number of picasso clowns babys those are F1.

They take the F1 and put them together and yield a much higher number of picasso's. A few are really white but thats not the point and ORA releases Picassos' clownfish to the masses These are F2 fish

Now people take the best of these F2's and put em together and start getting a hugh number of picasso young, amoung them are even more of these really white ones and people are introduced to the snowcasso F3 clownfish. in these batches a few are almost all white...

Now ORA is way ahead because they have been culling out the super white ones and back breeding them with the older really white ones and that kinda saves the gene pool alittle, since as a general rule F6 is where we get to many defective clownfish.

either way people are basically breeding 2 x F3 clowns and we finaly have enough all white ones that and ORA of coarse is the leader of this whole thing the Platinum percula is released it is esentialy F4. but do to good practices ORA hase them back bred and they dont get the rising number of defective fish (I hope)

Now you want to breed 2 platinums basically 2 F4's , bet ORA already has the fish you might see. I have heard hints to what it is, possibly spotted like the bitinctus they released awhile back, who knows..

Im betting alot of this type of stuff doesnt pan out. like the Jigsaw Maroons. I have seen picasso x snowflake.. and even seen a few other incredible morphs. bringing them to market.. thats not easy even for huge operations.


new_species.jpg


picasso x snowflake
hybrid122806a.jpg


supmar1.jpg


I cant find a pic now but there is a clownfish ion japan that looks like its done it 8bit pixel type spots its really freaky.. the list keeps going...
 
fishkid6692 said:
C-quest has special breeding set ups and i'm sure they know a few tricks to get them to spawn quicker. they have been doing this for a long time. bill addison opened a lot of doors in breeding marine ornamentals.
Click to expand...

I've seen their setup a few times, via other forums. And I believe, Bill know's what he's doing.
 
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