A.Theillei ,anybody tried it?

[MarinaP]

I am totally with you, Phil. I am not supporting either species or hybrid theories, I simply do not know. I post about my experience to broaden the knowledge base.

How much does it cost to DNA a clown, I wonder?...

[Reefvette]

Marina it cost alot! I tried its like a couple grand. Its used to be 25000


I have a fish that throws a wrench in all of this. A orange skunk with luecokranos banding. Sold to me as a mis bar orange skunk.

She was a large female that showed up Doa

[Reefvette]

Stripe does reach the nose but its got something that youve seen in yor juvis marina but the orange is so vibrant

[MarinaP]

Here is a pair to her



It is eco-tropic's pic. He said it was a hybrid. The thread is somewhere in the archives here.

[Reefvette]

Crazyness! Lets all keep doing this anyone else!

[WDLV]

I've been amassing something of a pictoral archive.... There are a lot of these out there. On DNA, I thought I would be able to get a friend who runs a genetics lab for Hopkins to map them (thiellei) but it was quite expensive.

[WDLV]

Originally Posted by phender

I didn't mean to imply that all the current hybrids in the wild have come from one pair. I am saying that it is possible that the original cross only happened with one pair of fish that may have produced for 10-20 years. Since that time and during that time, the hybrid offspring produced more hybrids by breeding leuc x leuc, leuc x chrys, and leuc x sand.. Most of the leucs I see now look to be more chrysopterus-like than the pics of leucs I saw in the 80's. This would partially explain why leucs and theillei only occur in limited locales rather than everywhere the parent species ranges overlap.

Not a bad hypothesis... not to mention that were that the case, some of the offspring carrying the recessive trait would occasionally spit out a leuc/thiellei.

I am not sure how my logic fits into populations of ocellaris and clarki,(unless you mean because clarkis will go into any host anemone, where ocellaris only have a couple) but I know that clarki is much more widespread than ocellaris. I don't know about shear numbers, but I am guessing that clarkis would win out there as well.

The point was as they relate to the number of different hosts they inhabit and how common the species are. Clarkii clearly wins that comparison from a potential host standpoint.

[WDLV]

Hey Clownfishfan, are we off topic yet?

[Clownfishfan]

Wow so much info! I love it!

I wonder why percintage of theillei a occ/sand pair would produce considering a chrys/sand throws only a smallish amount of leucs ? Does anyone around here breed leucs ,I would like to know if they are any harder to raise vs percs,occys,and clarkii?

Well I should be able to get the occy next week,and I got the sandy last week, how long does it take for a clownfish to change to female?The sandarcinos has been at the store for about 1-3 months (I think closer to 1 but not sure).

@walt ,I'm glad it's kinda gone off topic this is great stuff!

P.s did ya here?ORA has a leuc pair now,it won't be long before we can get a cb leuc for less than $100.

[Clownfishfan]

Also thanks for all the great photos!

[WDLV]

Let me throw a monkey wrench out there. I bought this video from Bruce Carlson years back and wasn't able to view it at the time because my computer lacked the software to view it. I found it tonight looking for some Pics of Sanjay's tank at Penn State. In any event, I was able to view it and the reason I bought it from him. He said the following interaction was video taped by his wife and this leuc female was swimming back and forth between a chrysopterus harem and the one pictured here. I think that this sort of interaction may occasionally occur on the reef during spawning. Imagine a male doing the same thing between two adjacent anemones. I'm gonna confirm the above with Bruce and will post a correction if any of the details were recalled incorrectly.

[Clownfishfan]

Interesting.......

[WDLV]

Originally Posted by Clownfishfan

P.s did ya here?ORA has a leuc pair now,it won't be long before we can get a cb leuc for less than $100.

I've had 7 leucs now. So, I'm not too pressed about it but I would like to see them more common in the industry so the collectors would leave them on the reef. It might seem to contrast my statement that I'm hoarding A. thiellei but I assure you, my intentions are aimed at proliferation in the hobby.... which is also aimed at conservation.

[Clownfishfan]

If you want more theillei ibluewater has 3.

[WDLV]

Those were sold like a year ago and some are misidentified.
This looks a whole lot like a leuc (given the body plan) but it's hard to tell because of the age/size. Also the price is about $100-$150 higher than typical market value.


This "pair" is IMO that of a thiellei (foreground) and a leucokranos (background.) I would not be surprised if both were actually leucs (due to the yellow-brown coloration.)
I think he'd have done well to pair them accordingly. I think he'd have done even better to have bred them himself and sold the babies. He says he collected them himself. If true, my hat's off to him.

[Clownfishfan]

Wow really?I wonder why they haven't removed them?

[WDLV]

Bruce confirmed the above mentioned details and took the time to raise the bar a bit by providing this video. What a guy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH60B...ature=youtu.be

[Winwood]

This is very fascinating. I used to think that both A. thielli and leucokranos were pretty much obvious hybrids due to their rarity in nature and a generalized lack of uniformity in specimens. In the case of A. thielli, it appears to be extremely rare and I strongly believe this species to be a hybrid.

In the case of A. leucokranos, I am not so certain anymore. I posted this video I found on youtube a while back that shows atleast 4 leukokranos inhabiting several H. crispa that appear to be growing in a colonial form (also strange). Here it is for those who didn't see it the first time around.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdoSWr5Lg04

Let me just state for the record that this is not my video and that I just stumbled upon it because I like watching anemonefish in their natural habitat.

In this video however, all the leucs seem to be rather uniform. It raises several questions in my mind. The obvious one being is leucokranos a valid species? I also wonder if leucokranos is a relatively common hybrid but with a preference to spawn with similar hybrids? Another obvious question, especially if one watches both videos is, if leucs are hybrids, then does perideraion play a large role? In the case of the orange skunks that have marking on their gill plates, how often do perideraion and sandaracinos hybridize because they share a very common and abundant host in H. crispa? I also would suspect these two species to be good candidates for hybridization because of their poor swimming ability and strong tendency to stay within the direct vicinity of their hosts.

Anyways these are things that really stick out in my mind and I share them merely as food for thought.

[WDLV]

I have seen photos of paired leucs sharing an anemone and subsequent collection.... possible the same specimens. I don't think this is evidence for them not being a hybrid. Further evidence (referenced above) from Fernando's breeding success furthers this belief. Then of course there is their general association with chrysopterus and sandaracinos in the wild.
That said, I believe that this is one reason we have 28... 29... 30 anemonefish species (or whatever the count is this month.) I believe that hybridization is a key to species creation with these fishes. At what point a species can be said to be a species I leave up to the biologists and geneticists to mull over.

[WDLV]

...and your video is exactly the kind of association that I think probably leads to hybridization. More interestingly... It begs the question as to whether H. crispa is asexually reproducing. That's a heck of a cluster.
...and I count five species inhabiting that cluster not including the damsels.
1. A. leucokranos
2. A. melanopus
3. A perideriaon
4. A. sandaracinos
5. A. clarkii (melanistic)


In my interest over the details I almost forgot to say I liked the video. Thanks for sharing!

[MarinaP]

Originally Posted by WDLV

It begs the question as to whether H. crispa is asexually reproducing.

Probably





I moved it to another system and these buds dissapeared.

[WDLV]

Nice.

[phender]

I had a guy on this forum several years ago send me pics of his H. crispa and babies that he said had budded off. The pics of the babies were not very clear and it was hard to see whether or not they might have just been aptasia, but he seemed convinced they they were exactly like the parent. Unfortunately he disappeared before I could ask more questions.

[Arati]

here is my theory and yes I have tried pairing sandy/occy with no success once the female was ready to spawn the relationship always fell apart.

I always tried with small juvys when i did it I belive in the hybred pair theory.


Now I belive in the hybred unpaired theory.

here is the scenario as illustrated in the video's above many clownfish migrating around in a field of anemones. Some male/female bonds occur and breeding takes place as usual. these pair are imo exclusively same species. (I also belive the classifications of clowns needs to be reworked, but another post for that).

Some fish begin to mature unpaired and they are males who roam the anemone field. These males will cut in on spawning pairs. maybe only for a second before being driven off. eventually unpaired males become female and choose a mate. The numbers of hybreds are kept low because not a ton of anemone fish share hosts, and the time a fish is a male is short. not to mention the difficulty in cutting in.

I belive it is highly likely that fish of a certain region share recessive genes and it is within any combination of these fish that Theille or even Leuk are created from.

Also I think it is highly likely that Theille are polymnus not occy

this is the fish I belive is responsible for Theille



but we see many kinds of hybreds

[Clownfishfan]

@ arati I thought it was Polymnus/sand too originally until putting 2 picture side by side.

IMO leuc could possibly be chrys/nigripes ,chrys/sand,or chrys/periderain ,if you notice in the vid that leuc is a rather light orange while some pics I've seen they have a dull brown(nigripes?)or somewhere between the 2. Maybe that's why they show up more?

Nice nem Marina !

This guy claims he could pair the 2 a get leuc and theillei
If someone could post the pics here or pm me that would be great
http://www.rareclownfish.com/forums/...thiellei-4093/