Freshwater clownfish

[BigTomo003]

So,, I'm in working progress of an experiment... Can't say much just now but will update on my YouTube channel FreshwaterCorals (will post updates on this and the yt channel)


So the basic concept is transfaring ocelerace clowns from saltwater to full freshwater.

In short just a little comment

If there was someway to convert them to fw would you purchase them? Do you think they would be popular? And what would you pay for a one of a kind fw clownfish?


This is all hypothetical so no hate please, just a fun post

 

[Webslinger]

Nope. you would have better luck trying to breath under water

 

[BigTomo003]

Nope. you would have better luck trying to breath under water

Im meaning it as in a hypothetical way, IF there was a clown that could live in freshwater would u buy it ect

Not like a literal way, just hypothetical.

 

[SDK]

You don't need to do the experiment. You will 100% kill the clownfish in short order...

From an article comparing euryhaline and stenohaline fish that discusses some adaptations that clownfish definitely do "not" possess.

If a stenohaline marine fish was placed in a freshwater environment the water surrounding the fish’s body would diffuse through into the body causing the fish to swell, because stenohaline fish have no mechanism enabling them to remove the excess water it would eventually die. If a stenohaline freshwater fish was placed in a marine environment the water would diffuse out of the body causing the fish to dehydrate and die. However, euryhaline fish retain both mechanisms which enables them to survive in both fresh and saltwater. They have the ability to excrete copious amounts of urine in freshwater to compensate for water diffusing into their body, and the ability to produce small amounts of urine in saltwater to compensate for the loss of water through osmosis. This, along with the chloride cells in euryhaline fish’s gills adapting to the environment the fish is occupying by increasing in size and number, along with an increase in Na+-Cl– ATPase in the cell after a transition from fresh to sea water, and reducing in number or entirely disappearing after a transition from seawater to freshwater. (Zadunaisky J, 1966) enables them to change environments with only a short period of time in intertidal zones to adjust. These adaptations allow marine euryhaline fish to take advantage of the freshwaters for safe spawning and growing grounds for their young and new food sources that would otherwise not be available to them.

 

[JohnnyBeagle]

Your experiment sounds like you're going to torture some clowns but to answer your question, if there was a freshwater clown I'd be happy to have them in my planted fw tank

 

[BZOFIQ]

Oh boy. Guppies in saltwater, clownfish in freshwater - playing god much lately?

 

[BigTomo003]

Your experiment sounds like you're going to torture some clowns but to answer your question, if there was a freshwater clown I'd be happy to have them in my planted fw tank

I must have worded the top comment wrong... Lol I'm not doing any sort of experiments on live fish ect. I agree that would be torture.

I was asking about what u guys would think of a fw clown what u think it would cost ect.

The experiment thing was for a completely different post aha I don't know why I added it here (adding too many posts I guess lol) that was for a diy refugeum. My bad

 

[Paleozoic_reefer]

in short, no...the beauty of having a clown (and any species of fish or coral for that matter) is to see them interact with other saltwater organisms in the tank. Not sure what the pleasure would be to see a clown swimming with a goldfish.

In length, ANY experiment to slowly lower salinity to freshwater is just counter intuitive of the biology and nature of any true saltwater species. If this was even possible someone would have already done it , either on purpose or by accident. It's just not worth the time to think about it let alone try it....

 

[Karen00]

What is the point of contemplating something if it's not possible? In the case of fish most can't be acclimated to freshwater and vice versa. Their physiology can't support it and no amount of acclimation will change that so I'm not sure the value of hoping for it. I hope to win the lottery. My chances are slim but at least it's possible. This on the other hand isn't.

Having said that if someone were attempting to genetically modify a clownfish for this purpose then I'm sure there would be takers. I'm not in the camp that embraces genetically modified things but I'm sure a lot of people would.

 

[BigTomo003]

I know how u feel. I love my reef and All the interaction that takes place.

Was just a fun comment to see what people thought of fw clowns

The experiment part was for another post, again my bad

 

[Karen00]

I know how u feel. I love my reef and All the interaction that takes place.

Was just a fun comment to see what people thought of fw clowns

The experiment part was for another post, again my bad

I think it's always good to pose questions that open up discussion but at the same time the questions should be in the realm of what's possible.

Obviously converting a clownfish to FW through genetic modification might be possible at which point the question would be whether this is the ethical thing to do. Making a freshwater clownfish has no benefit to the clownfish population (health or otherwise) or to humanity and would only serve to be a money making venture for suppliers of livestock to this hobby. I would not support this endeavour considering there would probably be a lot of dead clownfish along the way to making this happen.

The only way I would support something like this is if the ocean became so toxic to marine life that it became necessary to modify marine fish to live in FW to save the species but that's a different story entirely. If it came to that then we have far bigger problems that can be solved by making marine life able to live in FW and most likely the FW systems would be toxic as well and the planet doomed to extinction.

 

[BigTomo003]

I think it's always good to pose questions that open up discussion but at the same time the questions should be in the realm of what's possible.

Obviously converting a clownfish to FW through genetic modification might be possible at which point the question would be whether this is the ethical thing to do. Making a freshwater clownfish has no benefit to the clownfish population (health or otherwise) or to humanity and would only serve to be a money making venture for suppliers of livestock to this hobby. I would not support this endeavour considering there would probably be a lot of dead clownfish along the way to making this happen.

The only way I would support something like this is if the ocean became so toxic to marine life that it became necessary to modify marine fish to live in FW to save the species but that's a different story entirely. If it came to that then we have far bigger problems that can be solved by making marine life able to live in FW and most likely the FW systems would be toxic as well and the planet doomed to extinction.

Yeah man, that's all I intended it to be, a fun "what if" suggestion


The way things are going tho I think that's possible. We are destroying our reefs ect we need to preserve it as best as possible and I think having a tank is a absolutely fantastic way to show people just how beautiful they are, they see one they want one and in the process they learn new things all of the time.

I will admit I was one of those people who got 2 tiny "stupid" goldfish and stuck them in a 1g bowl to have them grow massive and die when I was younger, then I learned about filters, beneficial bacteria and all that. Then when I was about 12 or 13 I got my first tropical tank which was a 20g that had some neon tetras and a pleco or something. Looked at saltwater for years but it was too expensive and difficult to learn. Absolutely fell in love with it ever since now I'm 17 and can afford my own stuff and setup a 60g cube 8 months ago. All self taught from watching yt and stuff. Tanks been doing fantastic ever since so I had an opportunity that a local school was giving away a 600g tank for free. Scooped that up fast... Lol.

It's sitting in the shed waiting to get set up into a reef. Its going to be amazing. Hopefully

 

[BigTomo003]

Yeah man, that's all I intended it to be, a fun "what if" suggestion


The way things are going tho I think that's possible. We are destroying our reefs ect we need to preserve it as best as possible and I think having a tank is a absolutely fantastic way to show people just how beautiful they are, they see one they want one and in the process they learn new things all of the time.

I will admit I was one of those people who got 2 tiny "stupid" goldfish and stuck them in a 1g bowl to have them grow massive and die when I was younger, then I learned about filters, beneficial bacteria and all that. Then when I was about 12 or 13 I got my first tropical tank which was a 20g that had some neon tetras and a pleco or something. Looked at saltwater for years but it was too expensive and difficult to learn. Absolutely fell in love with it ever since now I'm 17 and can afford my own stuff and setup a 60g cube 8 months ago. All self taught from watching yt and stuff. Tanks been doing fantastic ever since so I had an opportunity that a local school was giving away a 600g tank for free. Scooped that up fast... Lol.

It's sitting in the shed waiting to get set up into a reef. Its going to be amazing. Hopefully

Didn't mean to tell you my life story lol sorry

 

[Karen00]

Didn't mean to tell you my life story lol sorry

No apologies needed. I think what you have learned over the years is amazing. It's all about learning and growing our experience in the hobby and to keep getting better. At the rate of decline of all of our natural water systems they might have to come to the aquarium hobbyists to get livestock to repopulate the rivers, lakes, streams, etc.

600g. Wow! I wish I had the room for that size tank. I look forward to seeing your build thread! Good luck!

 

[BigTomo003]

No apologies needed. I think what you have learned over the years is amazing. It's all about learning and growing our experience in the hobby and to keep getting better. At the rate of decline of all of our natural water systems they might have to come to the aquarium hobbyists to get livestock to repopulate the rivers, lakes, streams, etc.

600g. Wow! I wish I had the room for that size tank. I look forward to seeing your build thread! Good luck!

Yeah man for dedfinite.

I know right! They couldn't keep it anymore so put it up on gumtree and I happily got there first lol.

Need to wait till I get my own house but that will be within a year. I'm thinking sw pred tank, Idk I've got plenty of time to think aha.

Not often you get a deal like that.

Pretty sure it's 5ft by 2ft by 2ft it's a pretty big tank, might be 600l Im not too familiar with American terms of units lol. Its a 5ftr anyways. Built a diy stand for it not long ago its going to be a beast

 

[BigTomo003]

Yeah man for dedfinite.

I know right! They couldn't keep it anymore so put it up on gumtree and I happily got there first lol.

Need to wait till I get my own house but that will be within a year. I'm thinking sw pred tank, Idk I've got plenty of time to think aha.

Not often you get a deal like that.

Pretty sure it's 5ft by 2ft by 2ft it's a pretty big tank, might be 600l Im not too familiar with American terms of units lol. Its a 5ftr anyways. Built a diy stand for it not long ago its going to be a beast

It's 750l which is around 200g. Still pretty big though hah

 

[saltcats]

Speaking of clownfish swimming with goldfish, there was something like this already - somewhere in Japan I believe? It was something like, they used something other than salt to create the right osmotic pressure for the clownfish but still permitted the freshwater fish to survive in it... I have to say the fish in the video didn't look wonderful and I personally don't agree with trying it out on fish but but I suppose it's theoretically possible.
I can't find the thread I read originally but here's another one about a similar concept - https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/...thing-i-know-aquaria-just-crashed-itself.html

If anything I'd be more interested in having freshwater fish that can live in salt - in planning my tank I'm really missing all my small schooling fish!

 

[BigTomo003]

Speaking of clownfish swimming with goldfish, there was something like this already - somewhere in Japan I believe? It was something like, they used something other than salt to create the right osmotic pressure for the clownfish but still permitted the freshwater fish to survive in it... I have to say the fish in the video didn't look wonderful and I personally don't agree with trying it out on fish but but I suppose it's theoretically possible.
I can't find the thread I read originally but here's another one about a similar concept - https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/...thing-i-know-aquaria-just-crashed-itself.html

If anything I'd be more interested in having freshwater fish that can live in salt - in planning my tank I'm really missing all my small schooling fish!

Oh man imagine a school of 50-100 neons in a sw tank? Amazing

 

[RayDRoot]

Clown Loach?? I had some of these in a fresh water planted tank.

 

[BloopFish]

Speaking of clownfish swimming with goldfish, there was something like this already - somewhere in Japan I believe? It was something like, they used something other than salt to create the right osmotic pressure for the clownfish but still permitted the freshwater fish to survive in it... I have to say the fish in the video didn't look wonderful and I personally don't agree with trying it out on fish but but I suppose it's theoretically possible.
I can't find the thread I read originally but here's another one about a similar concept - https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/...thing-i-know-aquaria-just-crashed-itself.html

If anything I'd be more interested in having freshwater fish that can live in salt - in planning my tank I'm really missing all my small schooling fish!

I imagine that tank is more likely to be a low salinity brackish water tank than some sort of magic trick. Goldfish have been reported to be found in high salinity 17 in the wild https://mashable.com/2017/09/20/saltwater-bearing-goldfish-australia/

Experiments have shown goldfish can survive in salinities of 10ppt for long periods of time

https://www.jstor.org/stable/24321452?seq=1

As you may know, people regularly treat saltwater fish for long periods of time in hyposalinity treatments of 1.010 sg
So conceivably you'll have some individual saltwater fish that can tolerate a slightly lower salinity, and some individuals (goldfish) that may be able to tolerate an even higher salinity.