PSA: WTB Pure Darwin clowns

[Isosceles]

To anyone who was looking, in light of recent unfortunate events in the world of captive Darwin clowns, I called Sustainable Aquatics to confirm the purity of theirs, and can confirm that they sell pure F2 Darwins. Happy reefing!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Thanks for the heads up!

 

[D-Nak]

What recent unfortunate events in the world of captive Darwin clowns are you referring to? My understanding is that there are a lot of breeders who work with Darwins.

 

[OrionN]

You can get these at Petco. They have some very nice Darwin Ocellaris.
I got a pair of Black Snowflake that are almost perfect shape from Petco.
Less than 1 year and they are completely black and white.

 

[Isosceles]

You can get these at Petco. They have some very nice Darwin Ocellaris.
I got a pair of Black Snowflake that are almost perfect shape from Petco.
Less than 1 year and they are completely black and white.

These are very nice. Are the darwins at Petco from sustainable aquatics? I'm more concerned about the heritage than the color at this point, seen a lot of good designers with high black coverage.

 

[Ocellaris123]

What recent unfortunate events in the world of captive Darwin clowns are you referring to? My understanding is that there are a lot of breeders who work with Darwins.

Probably the initial mixing of ocellaris strains to create the black designer clowns like mixing orange snowflakes with darwins to eventually create black snowflakes?

 

[Ocellaris123]

You can get these at Petco. They have some very nice Darwin Ocellaris.
I got a pair of Black Snowflake that are almost perfect shape from Petco.
Less than 1 year and they are completely black and white.

These are super nice pair, i wish i could set up another tank to house a pair of black snowflakes

 

[Isosceles]

What recent unfortunate events in the world of captive Darwin clowns are you referring to? My understanding is that there are a lot of breeders who work with Darwins.

Probably the initial mixing of ocellaris strains to create the black designer clowns like mixing orange snowflakes with darwins to eventually create black snowflakes?

Not many people work with the pure darwins. They are hard to bring in because
1. The mutation itself isn't the easiest to come by
2. The area is hard to collect because of crocodiles
3. There isn't enough demand to support collecting more wild stock as opposed to just breeding whatever "black ocellaris" we have available.
Problem there is most of the ones sold nowadays are either outcrossed due to this lack of genetic diversity (in order to create more black fish) or culls from designer projects (most of which are crosses already).
The go to for hobbyists to my understanding was Robert King, with his 33+ year old wild caught pair, however he recently (devastatingly) lost most of his stock (including the pair) to a disease outbreak. I personally overlooked sustainable aquatics as a source before as they don't sell directly to hobbyists.

 

[OrionN]

I guess I only care about beautiful shape clowns. If they are not 100% pure blood and that take an DNA analysis to tell, I really don't mind.

 

[Onyxia]

Not many people work with the pure darwins. They are hard to bring in because
1. The mutation itself isn't the easiest to come by
2. The area is hard to collect because of crocodiles
3. There isn't enough demand to support collecting more wild stock as opposed to just breeding whatever "black ocellaris" we have available.
Problem there is most of the ones sold nowadays are either outcrossed due to this lack of genetic diversity (in order to create more black fish) or culls from designer projects (most of which are crosses already).
The go to for hobbyists to my understanding was Robert King, with his 33+ year old wild caught pair, however he recently (devastatingly) lost most of his stock (including the pair) to a disease outbreak. I personally overlooked sustainable aquatics as a source before as they don't sell directly to hobbyists.

They sell direct on their WYSIWYG. That being said, the outcrossed individuals have hints of the out crossing no? I feel like if the barring is good, and the faces are pretty dark... you should feel a little bit better. Granted I get what you mean about guaranteeing genetics, its super hard these days. I posted the same sentiment on my Onyx thread.

 

[Isosceles]

They sell direct on their WYSIWYG. That being said, the outcrossed individuals have hints of the out crossing no? I feel like if the barring is good, and the faces are pretty dark... you should feel a little bit better. Granted I get what you mean about guaranteeing genetics, its super hard these days. I posted the same sentiment on my Onyx thread.

Most of the time with outcrosses the face doesn't turn completely black, but some well bred ones (like Orion showed) do. Then there's the other end, where some WC darwins still have little orange dots on their chin lol