Clownfish inbreeding question

[tinoracha]

I know clown fish breading is very popular and can cost lots of time, energy, and money. I don't have the facilities to do so myself but its really fun to see others success and ive watched a ton of videos on it. One thing question that hasn't been answered by any of these videos is the issue with inbreeding. As far as I know clown fish are born sexless and the most dominate from the clutch becomes female and the second most becomes male and the rest usually stay sexually neutral. Then the 2 most dominate breed and the cycle continues, but it seems like no one is worried about the consequences of inbreeding. Do people adress this and I just havent seen it? Does it not matter in the wacky world of clown fish? I'd love to know!

 

[Peace River]

First, welcome to R2R!!! You ask an interesting question - inbreeding can be an issue with clownfish and from what I have read it will show itself in several ways such as a flat face. IMO it is helpful to realize that everything that is categorized as inbreeding doesn't necessarily equate to bad. I recently came across a paper that talked about this potential issues in the oceans as the environment changes. Whether or not one accepts the condition of climate change and/or coral reef loss, I think it is at least an interesting perspective to consider in relation to the possible impacts on wild clownfish:

https://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/fact_sheet_red_list_clownfish_v2.pdf

 

[SDK]

When I was breeding clowns (or any other fish for that matter), I always did everything possible to get unrelated fish. Clowns especially as they can live and breed for a "very" long time in an aquarium.

The good news is that clowns are maybe the easiest fish out there to pair up without buying multiple fish and jumping through hoops.

Purchase breeder one as a young heathy fish. Feed it well and let it get some size on it. Then buy breeder two from a different source as a small juvenile. You want to see a good difference in size here. It's actually harder to pair them when they are closer in size. That's why you see a lot of threads here from people who purchase two together at the same size and wind up with one dead.

Use an acclimation box to carefully introduce them, and you now have a young, unrelated pair to work with.

This method yields better results but requires some patience, which is unfortunately the downfall of many aquarists...

 

[D-Nak]

Breeding clownfish is easy, and most of reefers who have a pair of clowns more often than not see them lay eggs, and want to give it a shot, and many succeed in raising a clutch. Most oftentimes though, these babies are riddled with defects. While some defects are genetic, many are due to things like poor water quality and lack of knowledge of the breeder. Flat faces are usually attributed to poor water quality and the fact that many novice breeders raise the babies in tanks with flat sides instead of BRTs (black round tubs) and the babies oftentimes bump their heads into the sides and corners, especially when they are preying on rotifers in their first few days after hatching.

Many of the lines are also full of defects, and is partly attributed to inbreeding. If you ever looked at many tank-bred Picassos, C-Quest Onyx, and percula in general, you will oftentimes see short dorsal fins. My current project with C-Quest Onyx is to breed back in some of the more favorable qualities, such as larger fins. To do this, I have wild "onyx" (darker percula from SI/PNG) paired with Rod's Onyx. Many of the wild caught clownfish are sold to breeders to do the same thing with other lines.