The lightning maroon clownfish finally spawned!!!

By: Matt Pedersen

Yes you read right.  Matt Pedersen little “doubling down“  trick to get them to spawn that we wrote about here seems to have worked and the lightning maroon clownfish has finally spawned after 2 years of trying. This is very good news for all those who hope to keep these stunning fish one day, myself included.

Matt has been trying to get them to breed for two years now pairing it with a number of other maroon clownfish of both sexes.  Finally it paired with a smaller maroon clownfish and this morning matt could finally report that they had spawned for the first time. (read the full story here.)  It is a bit early to get too excited since it is common for the first spawns to fail and to produce where few fertile eggs but once a clownfish pair start to spawn they usually continue doing so.  Matt should hopefully soon have a number of lightning clowns to breed from and pass on to other successfully breeders so that they can help this clown fish become more available.  This clownfish really deserves to become a common sight in aquariums around the worlds and the chances of that happening greatly increased today.

Until today only two lightning maroon clownfish was ever caught, both in the waters of Papua New Guinea.   Just a few weeks ago a third fish was caught in the same waters that resembles the lightning maroons but with a much less distinct pattern. See the image below. This latest catch was aquired by EcoReef UK