In February of last year, Oceans Reefs & Aquariums revealed an interesting and nearly heartbreaking story behind the latest fish addition to their ever growing offering of clownfish, their Amphiprion leucokranos. In short, ORA acquired the fish pair from Ocean Gallery II, but they were temporarily lost during shipment from New Jersey to Florida. Apparently, the label fell off of the box, and the fish sat in the lost and found area of a shipping company for a few days. As most of us know, any aquarium livestock that sits in a box for more than a day has almost zero chance of surviving. Fortunately, the fish showed up at ORA facilities in great shape and didn’t waste any time getting down to business…and we’re happy to report that ORA caught their breeding activities on video.
In the high speed video, which is sped up 20x, we can see the female white bonnet clownfish laying eggs on a white tile, with the male quickly fertilizing them in the process. This is reportedly their third spawning event since being acquired by ORA, and if history tells us anything, the world renowned fish breeders will have success with raising the fry to a commercially viable size. This batch may not be the one, but we’re confident that we’ll see ORA Leucokranos clownfish in the not too distant future.
If you would like more info, be sure to visit ORA’s blog, which details this spawning event and their “lost and found” journey to the ORA facility.
