Misbarred clowns

[mtiknoles]

Hi Everyone,
I'm new to clowns and am curious, what makes a clown misbarred? Does something happen during its metamorphosis? Or is it an abnormal gene that makes it misbarred?

Tonya

[brtarr]

I believe that misbars, as well as other color variants, are due to a mutation.

[Rippinfrags]

I believe that misbars, as well as other color variants, are due to a mutation.

Like X-MEN?

I believe it has to do with mal nutrition, poor water quality, other reasons that I don't know of, and I believe the misbarring takes place in the first couple of weeks of the clownfish hatching. Hopefully someone else will chime in, because I know very little about breeding clownfish!

[phender]

Normal mis barring is a husbandry problem. Over barring like picassos and snowflakes is genetic. I haven't dealt with naked clowns, so I don't know about those.

When I first started breeding/raising clowns in the 90's my first batches contained a lot of misbarrs and jaw/gill deformities. Once I got the a filtration/water change schedule figured out and got better at culturing food, I was able to pretty much eliminate misbarring and head deformities all together.

[andrenym00]

Normal mis barring is a husbandry problem. Over barring like picassos and snowflakes is genetic. I haven't dealt with naked clowns, so I don't know about those.

When I first started breeding/raising clowns in the 90's my first batches contained a lot of misbarrs and jaw/gill deformities. Once I got the a filtration/water change schedule figured out and got better at culturing food, I was able to pretty much eliminate misbarring and head deformities all together.


So your saying that my domino clownfish is a product of malnutrition and poor water quality?

[mtiknoles]

I recently got a pair of misbarred onyx clowns. I chose them over a pair with complete stripes because I thought the misbarring made them stand out more.

[phender]

So your saying that my domino clownfish is a product of malnutrition and poor water quality?

Domino Clownfish fall into the category of "naked clowns". I haven't worked with "naked" clowns and don't know anybody who has, so I don't know if they breed true or pass the traits as a recessive gene or what. Considering that ORA says they are "very rare" suggests to me that it may not be genetic.

There seems to be a window of time in the development of the fry when the striping pattern is affected the most. Perhaps ORA has discovered how to use that window of time to their advantage. Judging from the blunt noses, protruding lower jaws and mis-barring on many of the ORA clowns, it wouldn't surprise me that the naked/domino clowns were a fortunate accident of poor husbandry that ORA has learned to manipulate.

A lot of people like mis-barrs and will actually pay more money to get them. In the not too distant past mis-barrs were discounted. Many breeder used to cull their mis-barrs, some still do. I don't really have an opinion either way. I just know from experience that if I wanted a higher percentage of mis-barred babies all I had to do was neglect them a little more than usual. Unfortunately it doesn't work the other way. Really good husbandry doesn't produce picassos. If you want to get more white than normal, you have to start with a parent that has more white than normal.