A good fish story

Once upon a time, as I was delivering fish to a store, I noticed that they had some A. ocellaris clownfish from another breeder friend of mine.  There were 6 clownfish in the tank, and one looked gravid, while another one was aggressively shooing the others away from her.  I thought to myself, "Those two look like a pair to me,", so I traded some fish for them and brought them home.  That was well over a year ago, and they have not spawned, not spawned, not spawned…
 
The male has changed from an orange fish to a mostly black fish.  It's strange, but the breeder these came from sells" tranforming" fish that change like that.  I didn't know it when I bought them. I've become increasingly unhappy with them taking up precious space in my broodstock system, and not producing eggs.  I decided yesterday that they had to go.  I could sell them as individual fish to a store that might want them.  Done.
 
This morning she looked gravid for the first time since I got her, and her ovipositor was down.  This afternoon they spawned for the first time.  Go figure.  Now I have to keep them just to see what kind of babies they will produce...

Congratulations! 

Thanks Jim,
I might switch out the male, because I don't really like the blackening thing and to cross a black with an orange generally produces a brown fish….yuch.

But, wouldn't that be likely to set her back a few months?

I think it depends on timing.  If you switch in the presence of eggs, and the fish get along, there may be no interruption.  It's still a risk.  I have doen this once, but I'm not sure it works every time.

I'm convinced fish can sense things like this. Mine seem to know when I'm going to leave town so they all spawn. Yours probably knew you were going to get rid of them.

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

Hey Kathy, that clown that I bought from you is mostly black between the stripes. Not in a B&W clown (no orange) sort of way, but very, very dark with an orange face. I thought it was just how you grow them in St. Louis.

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

Many of my older clownfish are very dark. Dunno why...

I was close to putting my 4yr mated pair of Picassos up for sale since they hadn't produced.  They are VERY skittish and don't leave their pot.  Not even to eat.  If the food doesn't fall into the pot, they don't eat.  But they got moved to a new tank system when I rearranged in April, and they laid a nest last week.  They are on the top rack, above my head and maybe they like not seeing all the foot traffic, or they knew they were about to get sold!   First nest was only about 20 eggs and only 5 made the 7 days to hatch, so I didn't bother with it.   

I had forgotten about this thread.  I had a beautiful pair that spawned regularly, and one morning the female was dead on the floor of the aquarium.  No clue why she died.  I decided to move the female originally paired with the dark male to the recently widowered male, and the female spawned again with her new mate, right on schedule.  The dark male I gave to a colleague at work who has an aquarium in his office.  Now I get to see my fish whenever I'm at work. Within 2 weeks, the nearly black fish began lightening on top. Now he is black only on the center of the sides, like where the bones are beneath the skin. 
 
I contacted the breeder, who said that these "transforming fish" can and have changed back and forth from orange to black up to 3 times in his experience. I suppose this is good if one cannot decide which fish he wants, orange or black.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

I know this is an old thread. But I think this color transition thing is interesting. I have a strong sense to think that this change in color is directly related to nutrition. Did you happen to change diet before or during this color change? I have a very very red ocellaris who I feed cyclopeze at least once a day. I went out of town for two weeks, while I told my tank sitter (who could not believe my fish ate frozen food) to just feed them pellets. When I came back, the fish was very dark, the tips of her fins were black. I returned to feeding her cyclopeze everyday and a week later she was bright red again. Do you think a similar effect is happening with these color changing fish? I think astaxanthin (or lack of) is the key. 

I do think that astaxanthin brings a lovely bright orange to the fish, but I am not convinced it has any effect on the blackening.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

Nearly positive it does.  IIRC Adeljean's (Works with Matt and Eric at the same lab) paper talks about how it effects it.  I'll see if I can dig it up, or get him to post here.
 
http://www.adeljeanho.com/publications.html
 
http://www.springerlink.c...tent/k9062384x88170w8/
 
 

I read the second paper on the first link, and it does not mention black coloration, but perhaps the first paper, still  in press, does. 

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)