Perc or Oc?

Had these around 4 months now and just noticed they spawned. I think they are Percula and that is what they were sold as. Could I have some opinions please.
There are about 50 eggs scattered over a wide area. Not a great spawn but a start.
sorry shots are not good the reflection on the glass effects the focus.

They look to be Occ. IMHO. Any chance you can get a pic of the eyes?

Our goal with "The Clown Factory" is simple....Raise healthy, beautiful, captive clownfish and ...his is our small part to help keep the Worlds reefs as God intended them to be.....Beautiful

Not tonight! Yes the eyes don't look orange enough to me. I have a pair of percs other than these and the orange around the pupil is more accentruated.

Our Occ. eyes will have a hint of orange when the hits them just right, but the Percs always have the orange no matter the lighting. Given the coloration of they eyes that you stated and the markings......I would say Occ. for sure

Our goal with "The Clown Factory" is simple....Raise healthy, beautiful, captive clownfish and ...his is our small part to help keep the Worlds reefs as God intended them to be.....Beautiful

It's hard to be sure from those pics but I'd lean toward A. ocellaris too.

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

Here's a couple of better shots I took back in March

Based on what I can see I would almost lean towards one of each.  The larger one in the bottom picture to me looks like A. Percula but I have my doubts about the back one.  Just my opinion   Need a better pic of the one in the back.

i agree with cuda, looks like one of each. the one with more black around the bars looks like a perc and the other deffinately is an occy.

Okay, count the dorsal spines... 
 
Jeff

I am by NO means an expert on any of this compared to everyone here, lol... but the one in the back looks like mine alittle bit - which has been labeled as Percularis by several breeders, but Bob Fenner was the first to call them that ... could it be similar? Looks the same the way the top 1/2 is darker than the bottom 1/2 of the body.....
 
Nice pair
 

Michelle  
 

 
A little inclined to agree there.  Or it could even be that the bolder one is a hybrid, a "Percularis" since it's kinda in between.
 
Based on this, I would not rear the babies, nor would I sell the off as a pair to anyone who wants to breed them.  Sorry, but they're just suspect enough that I would never want to buy babies from them.  THEN AGAIN, go back and look at my Ocellaris pair..the male is significantly brighter and has more contrast.  Counting dorsal spines might help too.  A big question - where did you GET the pair?  Was it a reliable source, or maybe a questionable one.
 
In the end, these days, I'm really thinking that we have to go back to Wild Caught Ocellaris for broodstock to know we're getting the real deal.

Counted dorsal spines, both got 11. Which would push me toward Oc's particularly as I have some other Perc's who's eyes are much more orange. Will try and get some more info from the original owner.
The eggs hatched tonight......

Took some shots of my percs today to compare differences. The percs have similar coloration and the female has wider bands. The percs however both have 9 dorsal spines. Here's the Percs.
Female

 
Male.

 
You can see the dorsal is more stubby on these than the other pair. So therefore could I have some more opinion as to whether the first pair are indeed ocellaris and the female has unusually thick stripes, or is it still the concensus the female is a hybrid?
Incidentally, the eggs have hatched and at the moment all 100% alive. Should I start a breeding journal for Ocellaris?
Here's a shot of the larvae.

They spawned again today

Funny - I looked at the first quesitonable fish again today and my brain shifted more towards ocellaris.  Then, I looked at the Percula pair posted, and looking at those two, I'm very inclined to think that the male in the pair isn't a percula on that one - the tall dorsal of the male is more suggestive of Ocellaris.  I also did not get 9 hard spines, but 10 (but I'll say it's hard to tell in that shot, I'm judging hard spines based on shadows in the white area).
 
Given that, my next question - where are all your fish coming from.  It makes me wonder, especially if the ocellaris and percs all came from the same source, or the same local metropolitan area, if perhaps there isn't someone rearing "Percularis" and they're getting out there.  I don't mean to cause undue concern, but in having only a couple pictures to look at, and now seeing 2 out of 4 fish as "iffy", it makes me wonder. 
 
I will disclaim all of this by saying that obviously, even in pictures, it is tough to tell these two species apart, but if in fact we're looking at any hybrids in the mix, well, I know of no way short of genetic testing that could reliably tell you that the fish is ocellaris, percula, or a mix.

Yes it is a difficult call. The first pair were from a guy who had them 5 years or more, so no real traceability there. The second pair were from TMC and the pair were claimed as a wild caught pair of percs.
I belive now the first pair are Oc's and the colouring of the female is due to age, the eyes are too dark for Perc and with 11 spines it clinches it for me. The 2nd pair the male does look to have 10 spines, but the eyes for me are more Perc than Oc, but possibly could be a hybrid.
From now on I think I will take a leaf from your book Matt and insist on prevenance as a safeguard.

Well, knowing that at least one breeder on this planet sells a hybrid of percula X ocellaris as straight up ocellaris is enough to acknowledge that whether accidental or intentional, this kind of stuff is going to happen. 
 
It's one of the big reasons that Cichlid breeders are always wanting to go back towards wild stock - they reduce the risk of the fish coming in being hybrids since they are collecting species from the wild..hybrids are not a common occurrence, even less so in the FW world..  Now, the species ID of a wild caught cichlid may be up for debate early on (i.e. in Aulonocara where all juveniles and  females almost look the same) but working with a reputable source eliminates that concern because geography tells you what species and race you're collecting...so just tracing that through the chain of custody gets the right, "pure" species to the breeder, even if the species ID can't be easily discerned on a female or juvenile without applying hormones (to reveal male coloration, which CAN be used to easily differentiate species).
 
So yeah, for me, WC for broodstock, CB for everyone who isn't breeding and is just "a hobbyist".  That's largely how the FW community works, and it does work.  Reduces issues like your clownfish uncertainty here.

Sound advice. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!
I think when you first start out your just so excited to get pairs that tracability is not even a second thought. Im going to visit the importers hopefully in Oct so I think I will start making a list now!
I think I will probably sell the 3 suspects off as individuals and keep the difinite Perc and pair her up with a younger male. It's a shame as I also have a picasso perc that needs a male as well. Cest la vie!

There are listings in the MBI Marketplace for picassos.  Just saying

Rook

Shipping to UK would kill it! The cost I mean.

Ah, forgot your on the other side of the pond.

Rook

Yep I have to SHOUT....Hahaha

HA!  Thankfully when it comes to something like a Picasso Perc, well, candidly, any other Picasso or Onyx or whatever would do.  Of course, since the Picasso is a wild type, there would be the opportunity to maintain good geographic genetics on it.  How?  Well, again, IF I recall correctly, I believe that the original ORA Picasso pair was comprised of a SI Picasso male and a SI Female.  Secondary breedings may not have kept that Solomon Island heritage intact, but if you can get ones from the original pairing, you could outcross to other Solomon Island Percs.  Why does this matter?  Well, any NORMALLY barred percs that might arise from the pair are still legitimately Solomon Island Percs...they just lack the Picasso genetic twist.

I will have a word with Arie and see if he can get SI Perc's. I'm sure he can, just a question of time....

We just need to get some more blokes over there on the other side of the pond on the MBI and using the marketplace.

As far as I'm aware I think there is probably less than 10 over here that actually raise and sell fish. I know alot of them look at this site but don't very often actively participate if at all. Maybe we can change that!

I'm all ears

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Here's a pic of the offspring of these guys. I think they are Oc's. I've seen another pair of Oc's today and the female was about 4 inches. She looke exactly like a Perc with markings except the eyes and dorsal. I think were so used to seeing small Oc's we forget what large female Oc's look like.
 
Anyways here's a pic of the 4 week old fry.

Just read this thread and if i was a betting man i would bet on occies

Ok the pair I referred to in post #27 I decided to buy. I am now even more convinced that most people are so used to seeing juvenile Oc's that forget what an aged adult female looks like. Both the female in the first post and this female are very similar and indeed if anything this one has even more extended dark colouration. She is around 4" in length and you can clearly count 11 spines. Here's a pic;
 

 

 
Think it's time I filled out my report for Oc's!