Amphiprion milii

[ThRoewer]

I got these wild-caught West Australian Amphiprion milii little over a year ago from @CoralsAddiction. (More on their history can be found on RC http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2698741)





A few weeks ago they finally spawned for the first time (rather quickly when compared to my percula pairs. Pair #3 took 5 years until they spawned for the first time)

Their first nest, rather small when compared to their 2. and 3.:




Freshly hatched larvae:




27-day old juveniles:

 

[CoralsAddiction]

wow, good size for being under a month old.

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Awesome man! I can say I have never heard of this species before today. Very beautiful!

 

[ThRoewer]

Awesome man! I can say I have never heard of this species before today. Very beautiful!

Allen lumped them in with clarkii but they are so different from the real clarkii (the one found at Maldives, Sri Lanka, and India) that they should be restored to species level.
https://amphiprionology.wordpress.com/2016/08/24/amphiprion-milii/

 

[CoralsAddiction]

Very similar to latz clowns as juveniles

 

[ThRoewer]

 

[ThRoewer]

Largest milii are 66 days old and smaller milii and percula are 48 days old.

 

[ThRoewer]

With great sadness, I have to report that the female of the pair is dead.
After not seeing her for a few days I took a closer look and found her decaying body. I suspect she choked to death on a piece of krill meant for the marine betta in that tank...

 

[ThRoewer]

For those interested in a pair of my babies, Diver's Den got 5 pairs from me via Biota. They were cherry-picked individuals I kept and paired as future broodstook but had to part way with to make room for Marine Betta.

The one currently listed is the only misbar pair in the lot:

https://www.liveaquaria.com/divers-...e-bred-clarkii-clownfish-bonded-pair&s=nlh&r=​

 

[dedragon]

Nice to see some breeding, i think SA aquatics calls them black clarkii, they really do need more species names as they are definitely a different species

 

[ThRoewer]

Nice to see some breeding, i think SA aquatics calls them black clarkii, they really do need more species names as they are definitely a different species

Yeah, they don't look or develop like clarkii, more like sebae. I could imagine that they are the result of a hybridization between the ancestors of sebae/polymnus and clarkii. They have features of both groups but seem to lean stronger to the sebae/polymnus group.

 

[FullSend]

I put an order in for one of the pairs last week, but DD just called me today saying they are "out of stock" and are canceling the order. I feel DD should be able to come up with more of an explanation considering you order the exact fish.

 

[ThRoewer]

I put an order in for one of the pairs last week, but DD just called me today saying they are "out of stock" and are canceling the order. I feel DD should be able to come up with more of an explanation considering you order the exact fish.

Strange...
Which pair did you order?

 

[FullSend]

I'm not sure which exact pair, they were not misbars though. I placed the order on the evening of the 29th.
I'm going to reach out to LA again tomorrow to hopefully figure things out.

 

[damsels are not mean]

I like these. Hope I remember them next time I build out a tank.

 

[FullSend]

I'm not sure which exact pair, they were not misbars though. I placed the order on the evening of the 29th.
I'm going to reach out to LA again tomorrow to hopefully figure things out.

LA made everything right and I received a different pair yesterday. They look great and already eating!

 

[ThRoewer]

These are actually father and son.
I put the surviving male of my original pair in a tank with some of their offspring I kept. Without the suppression by the female he turned into a female himself and started spawning with the largest juvenile I left with him/her. This is how "Finding Nemo" would have ended for real...

 

[Zionas]

Haha but the movie was meant to be kids safe.

How big do these get? If they’re anything like Clarkii do they top out at 5.5-6”? What about differences in behavior and temperament compared to actual Clarkii and the more common Ocellaris / Percula?

Would be great if you reached out to Biota. I think these would be in demand.

 

[ThRoewer]

Haha but the movie was meant to be kids safe.

How big do these get? If they’re anything like Clarkii do they top out at 5.5-6”? What about differences in behavior and temperament compared to actual Clarkii and the more common Ocellaris / Percula?

Would be great if you reached out to Biota. I think these would be in demand.

I think, 5 inches is already pretty big. That's about how big the original female got.
How mean they are, depends entirely on the tank size, the decoration, and the tankmates. Though, these guys are a bit more mean than the bicictus. Percula are, in my experience, a lot more timid than ocellaris or most other anemonefish. I actually have a pair of each, ocellaris and maroon, in a 40 breeder and the ocellaris are the dominant ones despite being a good deal smaller than the maroons.

Biota isn't too interested in anemonefish but I think, there is a market with less common wild-form species that the bigger breeders like ORA or S&R don't have all the time, if at all.

 

[Zionas]

Thanks for the info. It’s really good to know. I think even with Ocellaris and Percula and other more common varieties it is best to get tank bred specimens whose parents are wild broodstock, this way the genetics are better as well as the colors. I’m getting quite picky in this regard. When bred for generations in captivity we don’t know if we are getting “pure” strains or if they were cast-offs of creating mutant varieties.

However I think even with larger scale breeders such as Bali Aquarich, I don’t think it’s as much of a concern with the lesser-known varieties, because they are unlikely to mate with the more common ones in the wild and what’s the point of infusing them with hybrid genetics. The “Lightning Maroons” we see in captivity today were able to be mass produced because of mating with normal white-bar Maroons, and I assume picking the ones that inherited the Lightning traits. It was originally a wild morph, but unfortunately in its current form it is very impure because getting Lightning x Lightning from the wild was virtually impossible.

This I don’t think will be a concern with other fish species though, such as Regal Angels because they aren’t known to mate with anything outside their own kind.