Lightning maroon clownfish on ebay

I presume based on subsequent posts you originally said "the way God created them"? No worries on my part, no offense taken by that statement. But arguably, various religions put various views on things. Some might argue that in fact God is responsible for it all, the good and the bad. Some might argue that it was "God himself" who caused an aberrant maroon clownfish to show up on this planet ad come to the attention of a person who's pasttimes include breeding animals. God gave us dominion over them afterall, producing them, selectively breeding them, all *could* be part of God's big plan.

I say all that only to preface a point I'd like to make. If God truly has his hands in everything, then would not every "freak" and "design" be his creation? Should we not embrace them all? I might have to argue that if "God's Creation" is the arbitrary line in the sand that I drew in terms of what was, and was not, acceptable in the propagation of clownfish.

I like how you rephrased it much better, as I suspect it's really more what you meant, specifically - "I tend to like creatures the way nature created them." For starters, this is a sentiment that I can appreciate and share. And to a great extent, it is my point of view on marine fish in general, and clownfish in particular, at this time. There is also an important aspect to this, which you touched on later:

Indeed, and within these species are dozens of individual regional variants as well. A big part of me argues that we need a deeper appreciation for all these natural forms and geographical variants so that we become better stewards of them, both in the wild but more applicably to my interests, in captivity and in propagation. There is no doubt that the latest Black Ice Snowcasso is taking a spot that could instead be filled by a White-Tail Solomon Islands Cinnamon Clownfish or a Fijian Sunkist Pink Skunk Clown.

Now, for me, I have for a long time as a marine breeder drawn an arbitrary line in the sand in defference two the natural forms of the species we all know and love. 7 years ago, I pretty much villified the Picasso Perc....and it only got worse when the Platinums started showing up. I was worried that they'd push regular 3-stripe wild-type perculas right out of cultivation, which leaves us to collect them from the wild...but only if we even could. Afterall, how much longer will the aquarium trade be allowed, or be able to, harvest fish from the reefs? Someday I'm pretty sure we'll be left with only what we can propagate. Did I want tanks full of Picasso and Platinum Percs as the expense of the good old 3-striped Percula? Hell no! One problem with that point of view (well two actually).....

Picasso is a gene that was discovered in the wild.

Yeah, and more importantly, Picasso's genetic workings are starting to be sussed out by multiple breeders, and it seems that it's a partially-dominant, single loci trait. No Picasso Allele = wild type 3 barred fish. 1 Picasso Allele = Picasso Percs of varying grades. 2 Picasso Allelles = Platinum Percs. With this genetic understanding, suddenly Picasso became no worse than "Albino"...which is a well understood genetic mutation that occurs with regularity across many types of animals and plants. And more importantly, Picasso, like Albino, can be bred out.

ALL STOP - 1. It's found in the wild, so it's Natural Biodiveristy?! 2. It has a clear and manageable genetic inheritance and expression, so it can actually be controlled?!

YES!

So as much as I used to hate the Picasso Perc, that hatred for it was largely driven by false beliefs about it! Now, certainly there are still issues...eg. if suddenly the world shifted and only liked Platinums, and all that was produced was Platinums, we could still be stuck holding a bag full of platinums with no wild type Percs...and no way to get back to them. But knowing how they're most reliably produced, chances are we're not going to lose the wild type, nor the single dose Picasso.

So now, while I still don't particularly care for the Picasso aesthetic, and you still won't find one in my tanks, a deeper understanding of it changed the rhetorical line on it forever.

I still toe the line of "natural biodiversity"; while I'm arguably more drawn to the Gladiator / Wyoming White complex (basically the equivalent of the Picasso gene, only in Ocellaris instead of Percula), I'm hesitant to ever consider bringing them into my fishroom. However, if I did, I could still maintain regular old Ocellaris right in the mix...right now I don't even bother keeping Ocellaris. But again, I don't keep Ocellaris because I keep F0 Onyx Percs and F1 Latezoantus and F0 Sumatran Fire Clowns etc; the designer while alluring, would take a spot that I use for something far more important.

So when it's all said and done, the Lightning Maroon wouldn't have set fin in my tanks if had shown up as a "freak" in someone's breeding program.

But...

...I'll be waiting patiently for the humble apology:

The Lightning Maroon I bred with is a WILD fish collected from Fisherman's Island in Papua New Guinea (PNG), as is her regularly-patterned white stripe Maroon Clownfish mate. The Lightning Maroon also was not the first, but was in fact the second of its kind to be found. It is rumored there are more out there, which is not unbelievable because numerous Picasso-type Perculas have been now found and imported from the wild.

In every respect, it IS a "Freak of NATURE" The Lighting Maroon Clownfish are "the way nature created them".

And because of that simple fact, it puts the Lightning Maroon on the side of "naturally occuring biodiversity" which is what I have deemed worthy of my time and effort as a breeder. With the production of a small group of offspring, and the distribution of those offspring now, I've set the first steps towards preserving this unique genetic trait that was discovered in the wild.

We can talk about selective breeding another time, but I think people equate selective breeding with "deteriorating genetic fitness", inbreeding, and/or the accumulation of negative genetic traits.

While this is certainly possible with "selective breeding", that is not what "selective breeding" is. The term "selective breeding" merely draws a distinction between random / arbitrary breeding, what many might like to believe equates to "natural selection" (it doesn't), and the artificial selection of intentionally selecting two mates to create the next generation.

Indeed, these fish are "selectively-bred". I selected a Lightning Maroon Clownfish because it had something special about it, and I selected a suitable mate from the same geography (for many reasons). This selection was made in the hopes that we might see the trait in the offspring (or their offspring) and viola...we got lucky, but we also stacked the deck because what would the odds be that two regularly-marked maroons would produce Lightning?

Wrapping it up, let me tag this on. When the term "designer clownfish" first took hold, it kinda wrapped up a whole bunch of different things together. However, there's really two distinctions: There are genetic mutations, and there are hybrids. As I've gotten much more familiar with the genetic mutation aspects of multiple interest groups, I've come to realize that genetic mutations in and of themselves are not necessarily a problem; they do not readily conflict with those trying hard to preserve a natural form. However, hybridizing remains an ongoing problem because unlike a genetic trait (like Lightning), a hybrid cannot be bred out, it cannot be undone. Hybrids have their own pluses and minuses, but give the current immaturity of the clownfish breeding community on the whole, we are far from a point at which hybridizing should be embraced and encouraged (someday my view on that could drastically change, but again, certain things have to happen).

And for the record - as I recently wrote on another site, my views probably can and will change. I look at the clownfish world and say "please don't hybridize" and yet I look at the Orchid world where I personally created dozens of primary and complex hybrids and even named a couple....and that's a world where entire genera are considered endangered species. Wait, did I just say "don't hybridize clownfish, but by all means hybridize orchids?" YES! Why?! Because they're not the same thing...they're not the same scenario, the same level of maturity, the same conservation implications! Hybrids in the orchid world are actually a massively important tool in the battle to preserving every last species (because the species are the building blocks of all the hybrids...they are the foundation. Lose the species, lose everything built on their backs). I cannot say remotely the same thing for our beloved clownfish - we should be spending $400 on Mccullochis, not Black Domino Ocellaris, if we really want to think we care about the long-term future of our hobby and our natural biodiversity.

 

Haha +1

 

Didn't really mean the response as a "slam" on Jeff (no intent to inflict any personal humiliation or harm); Jeff's comments just spurred some really interesting thoughts and topics that I thought he'd appreciate hearing. I offer them for his (and everyone's) eyes and minds...do with them what you will.

 

You sure said a mouth full! No worries either, I don't feel slammed at all. I'm just a simple hobbyist with a simple belief, sure ain't no marine biologist or anything like that. As far as the God word goes, call it a force of habit. I do use that word often in replace of other words and nature is one of them. As far as any big plan goes. I doubt the way the world is today was part of any big plan, I like to call it a disaster, we as humans done a great job of destroying most of it.

So I guess this very rare fish found in the wild could also be called an accident of nature. I could buy that story! "Not the fish" but anyways if indeed this fish is in the wild by accident/mutant/hybrid I do apologize.

Mother nature! What a funny animal. On a final note: My anger extends from the fresh water part of the hobby and I think its a terrible shame. I see the salt water part of it going in the same direction once we get it figured out and we are working on it.

 

AMEN to just about ALL of that! Indeed, I chose the word "Guppification" when describing clownfish for a reason (turns out guppification has a different meaning in the greater world...oh well...it makes sense to aquarists).

And yet...I sell fancy guppies....

I also have set up production for traceable to wild Endlers however....

Matt

 

Great post Matt, and Jeff. I agree that things like glowfish are not my cup of DNA tea, but there is a big difference between hybridization, genetic manipulation, and selective breeding. This clearly is selective breeding, and I hope the lightening gene pans out the way Matt thinks it will.... and send me one someday and in trade I will pay him for his efforts lol.... even though I don't like clowns, and stay away from tomatoes... but this guy is cool.

 

Round two is going on now...

blue_zoo_aquatics | eBay

 

These are my cup of tea.

 

I just bid $20 on one. Hope I get it!

 

lol you need a couple more zeros