Breeding Journal, Species: A. percula ("onyx") x ("picasso")

Andy,
I wouldn't do that LOL.....
I gave you those eggs because I knew you'd have fun with them.  They are YOUR babies now! 
Now I just want to try and emulate your success in the extra markings.  I just put another pot in my larvae tank and I'm aerating the eggs.  I doubt they'll hatch tonight but probably tomorrow night.  I'm probably going to add less rotifers and concentrate on adding copepods for them.  We'll see what happens.

Well, you certainly should, except maybe you don't have any room for more clowns....
 
-------------------
 
Day 41.

We've now come to the part of our program that I like to call, "Feeding Funtime 4U"(TM).* Watch the thrill, the spills (especially the spills, as I'm pretty messy).

 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PzrZMwe2dg
 
_____________________________
*Note: The crew at The "Umm, fish?" Lawyerly-Type Team(TM) tell me that I should tell you that the (TM) above does not mean "trademark" as you might have assumed, but instead means "Time for a Meal." Then they go on to say, "Stop calling us 'lawyerly-types' and we are not on a 'team.'" I tell them, "There's no 'I' in 'team' but there is certainly an 'I' in 'bit%*#$.'" It tends to go downhill from there, as you can imagine.. Oh, and the (TM) on "The 'Umm, fish?' Lawyerly-Type Team (TM)" _does_ mean "trademark," but as the team says, "He can't be bothered to file the paperwork." Just so we all know where we stand. Bet you've never seen a forum post with footnotes before. 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

lol Gale, I think it's a surrogate only thing... we'll have to test my theory
 

Pelagically yours,
~J      

LOL....next batch is yours Joe

he he... sweet Gale...
 
*nudging the others*  see them sales skills, those sad puppy dog eyes.... yeah baby yeah!!
 
**trips over his own feet walking off to set up larval tank**

Pelagically yours,
~J      

Day 42.

A little more artsy on the photos today. Few of the straight ones I took turned out.
 

 
Very dark, but I love this shot:
 

 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Simply beautiful 

Michelle  
 

Day 45.

We're in a groove now. The kids are eating big kid food (see below) and are starting to grow fast.
 
Note the tail stripe on the one on the far right:
 

 
With a cube of food:
 

 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 47.
 
I think if I ever have to write a monthly column for anything I'll name it, "Notes from the clown ball." Of course, it'll probably have something to do with typesetting and then the title won't sound so nice.
 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 55.
 
Sorry. It's been a while. The fish are developing fine. Many, many of them have now abandoned the clown balls and even the sides of the vessel and are now staking their claims out in the open waters. I've been fighting a bit of a bacterial situation and the water's been mighty cloudy. The fish all seem fine and I've had no losses since the last one reported here, but it was still worrisome for a while. Things have been getting back on track, though. So, please excuse the cloudiness in the photos. The fish are now starting to avoid being photographed and I have to shoot them through more water. Since the water is a little cloudy still, more water = more gunk between the camera and the fish.
 

 

 

 
Lookin' like fish.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 58.
Lots o' fish.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 69.

I haven't posted any eye candy in a while, so here's a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKxk5FRpOg0

The markings on that one are really cool. It really is a perfect little "4".

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Very cool! I see you got a "T" too. Isn't it hilarious how they swim to hide the interesting side from the cam?

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

LOL...I told him on the MASC site that he now has the Tal "T" marking

They sure do. I sometimes will sit for minutes at a time, waiting for the fish to turn the right way. They wait 'til another fish is in the way, then whip the right way and back again before the other one clears. Tell me they don't know what they are doing.
 
So, my kiddo claimed the ones that look like they're making a T, along with "check" and "4". She takes all the ones that would bring in the big bucks.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

lol I'll nab check and 4 if they're not nabbed already
 
just dont tell the wife how much of the "big bucks" I give you.....
 
you take chocolate coins right?

Pelagically yours,
~J      

They are claimed. That kid grabs the good ones.
 
Just had Proto's yesterday and leftovers today for lunch. You are missing out, boy.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

lol
 
isnt there a new forum for smack talk

Pelagically yours,
~J      

Day 73:

Well, I have an eye exam in a couple of days because for the past few weeks I haven't been able to see focus any more. This is about the best I can do:



Death count since day 4 now stands at 8: 6 unknown, probably stresses at meta; 1 from a siphon mishap; and a few days ago 1, likely from aggression (it was one of the late developers and pretty small).

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 83.

I've lost one to jumping and one to an overflow issue (got stuck in-between screen and pipe and drowned).

Stereotypical fish-in-hand shot. This is one of the medium-sized ones.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 91:

This is _my_ overflow.



Big ball.



So, the one to the lower left is obviously a cull (gill flare). At what point do you cull, though? The one above and a little to the right shows a little, but not much.
 
Or, maybe this one?
 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

A person asked me to post some updated photos of the kids. I'm still having a little trouble focusing sometimes so I apologize for the ones that are out-of-focus.

This one's fairly typical of the early-developers. Looks like the early coloration might have something to do with onyx development. Maybe? Just a guess. Well into tail stripe development. With sideburn stripes.



Without sideburn stripes and still a little slow on the tail stripe.



Early developer with sideburn but not a lot of other stripe aberrations.



A pretty typical later developer. Still a little pale but a nice-looking fish.



A clown ball. You can see that some of these have a more peach/pink color. Gale says that he gets some of these, too. Genetic variant?



Another that seems on the way to onyx.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

So, what are these?  They are not hybrids since they are both percula, right?  They are simply percs, but different color percs?
 
Nice pictures, makes me want to try clowns

Rook

Are you getting any that have typical A. percula patterns? My Picassos throw some that are slow barring like normal A. precula and some that get fully developed patterns that have all 3 bars way earlier than typical A. percula. All in the same batch.

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

Rook: Yeah, they are mixes of different strains of the same species.
 
Tal: Yes, there are some that are pretty typical perc. Surprising to me how low the percentage actually is of normal-looking ones. The high percentage of misbars is not something that was usual when Gale raised other batches of them, though I don't know what his percentage looks like on recent runs.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Any update on these guys? My percula/ picasso pair spawned recently and I'm curious to see if mine turn out like yours. Any possibility you could post some pics of the parents? 

Here's a video that I took a few days ago:
 

 
They are still swimming around, being silly fish.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Awesome, thanks for sharing!

Very nice!

Michelle  
 

Thanks, y'all. I just wish that I could sell them faster. I want the space to work on new projects. Plus, they are eating me out of house and home and water changes.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Do you by any chance have pictures of the parents?

I don't, actually. These are from a pair of Zooid's fish and I can't find that he's put up pictures of the parents anywhere. Maybe he'll take pity and post some here?

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Gotcha. Thanks anyway!

so what percentage are you getting with the parents being onyx/picasso mix... normal %  picasso %  ????

No clue. My batch of eggs came out with a pretty high percentage of fish with some strange patterning. Gale hasn't had nearly that experience, which makes me wonder if there's also an environmental component to the patterning in addition to the genetics involved.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Grr. My fish photo server is down. I'll try to get working on that. In the meantime, I'm excited to report that I finally caught two of the babies from this bunch spawning today! It's been so damn long.... But I'm excited because this is a new era: Clowns have never spawned for me before.
 
Here's a bad phone photo of the spawn. It's on the aquarium seam near the top of the water. Their tank is almost completely full of chaeto.
 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Awesome, congrats!

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

Nice!  I still have the pair of babies from this batch you sent me long ago, Andy.  They've spawned for me a few times, but I've not yet attempted to raise any of the larvae.  Good luck with them!

Thanks, y'all! Here's dad tending the eggs:
 

 
Both of the adults have some flared gills but I figured that to be a developmental issue rather than genetic so I never culled for that. It really was a bummer. They were all developing really well and I missed a water change or two and bam. Lots of flared gills.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

You'll come full circle on these guys - nice!