Lightning Maroon News - for those who didn't go to the MBI

If you weren't at the MBI Workshop this year, among all the other exciting information you didn't get, you also missed out on being the first to know about this:
 

 
It has now been 1 week.  Unless the Lightning goes psycho, I think we're finally on to Phase 2 of this project!  More at - http://www.lightning-maroon-clownfish.com/?p=1117
 
Matt

MBI...or it never happened...

Awesome news! Thanks for sharing...

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

HOOOOLLLYYYYYY  !!!!!
Thats freakin AWESOME, Thanks for posting that Matt, time to start saving some cash

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

Awesome Matt!

Whohooo! Congrats on finding her a mate!
 

Doni Marie~

That's great!

That was a nice surprise to be sure!

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Very cool indeed.

Rook

that's awesome Matt. Congrats!!! I know a lot of hard work went into this!  I'm going to start saving my money now....

RLTW

180 Gallon Mixed Reef

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8

Well done Matt! When can I put my order in!? Hahaha
 
Great reward for all that effort. Keep us upto date.

 
Well Doni, I didn't really "find" her a mate - this was one of the original males sent along with the Lightning Maroon.  Going this route (making the Lightning female) wasn't my first choice, but as the field of options narrowed, and I found myself with only 4 total PNG Maroons (including the Lightning) with no hope of any more coming from PNG (despite months of patiently waiting on the expectations that they would), I had to shoehorn this pair together   So I had the mate all along, and in the end, I had to get a bit creative to ensure that  this male was accepted.
 
Thanks for all the congrats guys!

So, why did you prefer for the lightning to be the male?  Is there some genetic dominance with the male suggesting a greater likelihood of the markings carrying on in the fry?

Rook

very nice!!!! congrats

 
Funny you mention that.  There is a rumor in the breeding world that "male" contributes stripe pattern to the offspring.  I have no CLUE where that rumor started, nor can I find any factual reference.  My best guess is that someone, somewhere, saw that the Picasso Pair that kicked off all ORA's breeding used the picasso as the male, which in that case clearly the Picasso patterning came from the male.  I think that one example of a pairing somehow got relayed and muddied and morphed into "the male in a clownfish pair is always the one that controls stripe formation in the juveniles", not "in ORA's initial Picasso breeding, the Picasso founder was the male in the pair".
 
Still, I couldn't fully disregard that rumor since I cannot debunk it.  So yes, that was one reason.  But the main reason was simply this - if any other Lightning comes along, I could pair the existing one to it.  If they collected a 4" female, great.  If they collected a 1" male, great.  ANY maroon that might come along could be paired with the Lightning so long as I kept the Lightning male.  Now that I have let it slide to female, if they collect a female Lightning Maroon, I am out of luck.  So to push it female reduced my chances of pairing it with another wild caught Lightning Maroon by as much as half.
 
FWIW,
 
Matt

Very smart. Keeping yours a male in order to be able to pair up later to either sex is an excellent idea.
 
My experience with male vs female contributing to coloration with my percula picasso variants has not shown any significant difference. In my attempt to get more F1 picasso variant broodstock, I have several breeding pairs...
 male picasso x female unrelated wild caught ,and
female picasso x male unrelated onyx
(Where both picassos are siblings)
The above pairs' offspring in regards to amount of white are very similar.

Doni Marie~

Well Matt, there is your evidence to contridict the transformed rendition of what ORA did

Rook

Congratulations, Matt!

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

Doni, awesome feedback re: the Picasso breeding.  I've put it out to others, but will put it to you too - track your outcomes in terms of numbers / grades per total batch.  I think with the proper data, we'll be able to find a working theory of the genetics behind the percula/picasso/platinum cluster. The more, the better!