Batch of juvenile Sea & Reef clownfish, an as-yet-unnamed variant of Amphiprion ocellaris to be introduced at MACNA 2015 in Washington, DC. Image: Soren Hansen.

Excerpt from CORAL Magazine’s
RARITIES section, September/October 2015 Issue

“One-in-a-Million” New Ocellaris Clownfish

Attendees of the Marine Aquarium Conference of North America in Washington, DC, will get a chance to see the latest and most eye-catching new designer clownfish, which is about to become available to aquarists.

Breeder Soren Hansen of Sea & Reef Aquaculture in Franklin, Maine, provides the history behind this new mutant, hatchery-bred anemonefish, still unnamed:

“Late in 2014 we released a new strain of fish we had named the MochaVinci Clownfish. This designer clownfish was created by breeding our DaVinci Ocellaris Clownfish with our Jet Black Ocellaris Clownfish. The MochaVinci Clownfish inherited the classic swirly white pattern of the DaVinci Clownfish, but the red coloration had been replaced by a more golden and black coloration, similar to that of the Black Ice and Maine Mocha Clownfishes. The MochaVinci Clownfish was a hopeful first step in creating an all-black-and-white DaVinci Clownfish, and our plan was to continue breeding our MochaVinci Clownfish with our Jet Black Ocellaris (Darwin) through several generations in order to breed more black coloration into this fish while maintaining the classic swirly pattern of the DaVinci Clownfish.

One of the new clowns, descended from Sea & Reef’s Mocha Vinci line.

“One of the MochaVinci offspring looked very different from the rest and it quickly became apparent that this was a one-in-a-million mutation. Instead of the golden coloration and swirly patterns of the MochaVincis, this single fish displayed an exaggerated white pattern that had more straight lines. Furthermore, this fish turned jet-black very early on. We initially called it the Black DaVinci Clownfish and believed we had just bypassed several generations of breeding more black into the MochaVinci line.

Mocha Vinci Clowns at the S&R Maine hatchery.

“The mutated MochaVinci Clownfish was paired up with a Black Ocellaris Clownfish with the goal of creating offspring with a pattern similar to that of its unusual parent. During the brutally cold Maine winter of 2015 the pair laid their first nest of eggs, and shortly after that we raised the offspring. It quickly became apparent that the offspring looked very different from the mutated MochaVinci Clownfish. The offspring displayed an even more exaggerated white body pattern, with an almost entirely full-white face mask.

“The black pattern on the fish took shape as a combination of blotches and circles, as shown in the accompanying images. Although this is a DaVinci Clownfish mutation, they look very different, and therefore we believe that this mutation should not be called Black DaVinci Clownfish. We want to reserve the name Black DaVinci for our future all-black-and-white DaVinci Clownfish with the classic swirly pattern of the DaVinci line.

“We would like to invite CORAL Magazine readers to help us find a name for this new and unique strain of clownfish. Please be on the lookout for our Facebook naming contest in early September (www.facebook.com/Seaandreef) or send your suggestions to sales@seaandreef.com. Sea & Reef Aquaculture will display this new strain of designer clownfish in September at MACNA 2015 in Washington, DC. Stop by booth #513 to see this fish for yourself. Once it is named, it will be released for sale in the late fall of 2015.”
—Soren Hansen, Sea & Reef Aquaculture