Introducing the Long Finned Clownfish

I guess we all knew that it was only a matter of time until we would see this, a long finned Ocellaris Clownfish. The fish was found in a batch of fry at Sustainable Aquatics breeding facility where marine biologist Matthew Jolley thought it looked odd as a young fish and separated it from the others to prevent it from being beaten up or killer. It was being severely bullied and was injured. The parents had produced many thousands of fry but this is the first long finned fry that has been spotted.

The young long finned male has healed up and been paired with a wild caught larger female (to garantee genetic diversity) and they seem to have bonded well. They have started spawning and Sustainable Aquatics is expecting their first batch of fry any day.

It still needs to be seen whether or not the long finned ocellaris breed true but there is reason to be believe that he may and if this is the case it will likely not be long until we start seeing this long fined clownfish type in the stores.

The reason that it is likely that he breeds true is that the trait likely is dominant or partially dominant; most long fin mutations in fish are. If this is the case in the ocellaris clown fish than we can expected to see long finned versions of most color morphs as the trait get bred into existing lines.

Read Sustainable Aquatics facebook announcement here.