Clownfish breeding build thread - first go at it

[Mr Cob]

that's hilarious. you should buy him a bunny.

lol! I had to google that one. Had no idea what a 4-H bunny was.

[Planeden]

Ha, I figured that's why you went with 4-h. But I guess "h-4 you sank my battleship" was a bit cumbersome.

[Mr Cob]

Quote

Picked up a new broodstock fish the other day and looking for a male to pair her up with. Kris from Alpha has some nice ones that we are looking at. Here she is.. Goldflake maroon:

And a few pics of the babies...both snow onyx and onyx picasso. Just about every single fish is showing nice patterns as their second stripes come in.

[+etannert]

Little 4-h would look pretty cool in my school tank this fall...

[Mr Cob]

Ckeck out "T2" ("T square").. near bottom of pic. Onyx Picasso and Snow Onyx fry. He is an Onyx Picasso and the "T" is identical on both sides.



A few fish we are following out of the hundreds..

4H (4H has the number 4 on one side and the letter H on the other, beauftiul Onyx Picasso)
T2 (T Squared has the letter T on both sides, another nice looking Onyx Picasso)
K (K has the letter K on one side or both.. I forget)

Little e (has a lower case "e", another awesome Onyx Picasso baby)

Jackson Pollock (This little dude has a sweet print that resembles the painting style of Jackson Pollock, amazing looking Onyx Picasso)
Mongrol (Mongrol is cull that is hyper and swims all over the place during feedings, we are attached to him and he has been crazy since before his stripes.)
Bird (Bird is another cull that has a beak looking face, lol and he looks as though he is flying when he swims. We love Bird too.)

[Planeden]

i'm not an expert on breeding, but if you bread T2 with H4 will you get TH? it would be awesome if you could do personalized clownfish with people's initials on the sides.

[Mr Cob]

The other side of "T2":



Here's "Little e":



Investing in some camera equipment so Mrs. Cob can retire my cell phone pics.. lol

[Mr Cob]

i'm not an expert on breeding, but if you bread T2 with H4 will you get TH? it would be awesome if you could do personalized clownfish with people's initials on the sides.

...and then take "TH" and breed it with "Little e" to get: "THe"

lol!

[jestep]

I really want little "e". That's awesome

[Mr Cob]

Another shot of "T2"...

[bige]

That's cool.

[Mr Cob]

thank you

Picked up a known spawning wild onyx female, she is about 3" and paired her with a black snowflake that I had with a large darwin female. We'll see how it goes. She was chasing him around a lot so I put them in a net with little water... problem solved. I think.

[Mr Cob]

Baby videos : ) These vids are a few groups we have of both Onyx Picasso and Snow Onyx hybrids. The snow onyx are easy to determine because their head stripe is cloud-like, much like a snowflake.

[Mr Cob]

So while searching for a mate for our goldflake maroon I found this absolutely jaw dropping fancy snowflake at Alpha Aquaculture and had to get him. He will replace the black snowflake that we paired up with the new onyx female spawner (the female just wasn't taking to him):

This fancy premium snowflake is bred by SA









...and here's the goldflag maroon that we will pair up with the goldflake maroon:

This goldflag is bred by FEA






Can't wait to get these two in.

[RobR]

So while searching for a mate for our goldflake maroon I found this absolutely jaw dropping fancy snowflake at Alpha Aquaculture and had to get him. He will replace the black snowflake that we paired up with the new onyx female spawner (the female just wasn't taking to him):

This fancy premium snowflake is bred by SA

...and here's the goldflag maroon that we will pair up with the goldflake maroon:

This goldflag is bred by FEA

Can't wait to get these two in.

Wow great looking snowflake. Have you received him yet or just ordered from Kris? He has some great looking clownfish on his site. Would love to see some more pics of that guy when you get him.

Edit sorry just saw at the end you are waiting on them

[Mr Cob]

Thanks, will definitely get some more pics once they get in. Looking forward to pairing that snowflake up.

Sent from my HTC VIVID using Tapatalk

[Mr Cob]

My fish came in from Alpha Aquaculture yesterday and they look great. Here is the premium snowflake and his new mate..

[Mr Cob]

My wife took a shot of a few of the babies, I think this is like my first non cell phone pic in this thread. lol

[+brian.srock]

They grow up so fast. Which set is this from and when are they going to become available?

[Mr Cob]

Hey Brian, the pic is showing both Onyx Picasso and Snow Onyx, multiple clutches of different ages. The oldest ones (Onyx Picassos) are from 05/17/2013 and my first clutch of Snow Onyx were a couple weeks after.

They were growing kind of slow in my opinion but once I beefed up their feed they really started taking off. I think we are a few months away from releasing some. There are larger ones as well with much deeper prints. Once they start hitting the one inch mark they will be available.

[RobR]

My fish came in from Alpha Aquaculture yesterday and they look great. Here is the premium snowflake and his new mate..

Wow that fish is absolutely stunning, love his pattern. Very nice addition

[Mr Cob]

Thanks, Rob.

Got the cell phone out today

Pics of the Onyx Picasso babies and Snow Onyx..




You can see T-squared in this pic, lower left...



I really like the print on the one in the middle of this pic, helmet head and chin straps..way cool little guy

And no update would be complete without a vid..

[jestep]

I swear I've heard this track before, I mean never-mind...

[Mr Cob]

I really have been dreading this update because I want to just keep moving on, but in an effort to keep a good journal of our clownfish breeding project and hopefully help others I will take the time to post this update.

I will start with the lesson learned: It's not worth it to purchase cheap heaters and digital thermometers just because you have 10+ to buy. AT some point they will fail. PERIOD. We didn't even purchase the cheapest, but we didn't purchase the best either, which in this case I think it is most definitely worth the cost to purchase the best available.

Result of not purchasing the best heaters and digital thermometers: 100-150 fish dead.

What happened?: Thermometers were 2-4 degrees off and heaters did not shut off causing the water to heat up and kill the fish. Since the thermometers were not picking up the rising temps, it went unnoticed by me.

Moving forward: Will replace all heaters with more reliable brands and quality. Will also purchase digital thermometers that have built in alarms. Will also keep grow-out tanks at 81 versus 83 to give some more room for error should something like this happen again.


Heaters that failed: Aqueon Pro Heater - shatter proof (not the cheapest of all the heaters but definitely not the best either)
Thermometers that continue to fail: Coralife Digital Aquarium Thermometer


Now for the good news... still have 500+ babies of all ages in grow-out!

[bige]

Sorry for the lose. Heaters suck. I had a titanium finnex heater explode. Smoke, fire and basically total death. So its not always the cost. And the heater was a maybe in use a week. Finnex said my heater was part of a bad batch of silicone and they were recalled but aquacave sent me one anyway. Then aquacave blamed me for not using the heater properly. So needless to say I don't shop there anymore.