Koral, you’re right no doubt, but even Trolls deserve our “love”…or at least the dignity of a response.
MSB – To simply say what I am doing is “inappropriate” and “invalid” without backing it up is nothing more than empty rhetoric. What would you do differently, and how am I “falling short”? Please do share your own marine fish breeding expertise and wisdom, because frankly, I’m not really going to humor your empty criticisms if they’re coming from someone who doesn’t have the knowledge, experience and understanding to really be coming from a point of understanding the entirety of the project in the first place. By all means, tell me how to do it BETTER, not differently, but BETTER, and explain exactly why I’m “wrong”.
There have been other critiques from people who truly just don’t “get it” and I think that’s where this is coming from. If you aren’t familiar with breeding marine fish, including clowns, impatience on your part could be understandable, if misguided. You can pair up 2 clownfish and have nothing happen for years. You can simply move a spawning pair and they’ll stop for weeks, months, or even never spawn again. I’ve seen this “sooner than later” argument before and in light of those simple truths, and in light of the fact that the fish has had a mate available to it for MONTHS now and simply has not spawned, you’re just 100% off base. I find it simply a lack of understanding to say that I’m “not focused and dedicated enough” – the fish has had a mate available to it, good water, plenyt of food and time. That’s what it takes – TIME. Breeding moves at it’s own pace with clownfish. Should I post every day “no spawn today”, “no change today”? Is that what it takes to prevent such criticism?? To write about what’s not happening?
What I do with SPS or other corals in this future home of the Lighting Maroon is truely irrelevant to the breeding project. The simple truth is that they are independent goals for the tank. The goals are not mutually exclusive, and if anything, setting the higher bar for water quality that’s required by SPS is only going to be in the best interests of the other inhabitants. So no, the coral are not the “priority” here as your criticisms suggest, let alone pushing the Lightning Maroon to the back seat. SPS is simply another facet of the tank. Has virtually nothing to do with the breeding of the fish. However, setting up the new tank IS a “priority” to give the fish a better environment for breeding, and that’s what is going on in the project right now. And that’s why it’s part of the blog.
Still, it’s not like planning for SPS in this tank in any way prevents also planning for the Lightning Maroon spawning in this tank. That seems to be the base of your critique, but the reality is that once the tank is established, I could just as easily throw a flowerpot in that tank and call it a day – it’s not going to matter to the breeding project one bit.
Bottom line MSB, you need to realize that a clownfish breeding project requires patience. It doesn’t happen overnight. Criticizing the fact that it hasn’t happened yet as some personal shortfall on my part, I won’t accept, because it’s simply without merit and the facts of Clownfish breeding suggest otherwise. Sure, I don’t have the resources of an ORA or Sustainable Aquatics, but if the shortest-path-possible to ANY mating of the Lightning Maroon was all that mattered, I wouldn’t have been the breeder selected for this project in the first place.

Well it would seem that in actuality, you largely concede to my points seeing that you agree with most of what I wrote. So I’ll only address those points where you’ve fallen short.
MSB >1. You should have had a dedicated home for the Lightning Maroon from the moment it arrived to you.
MP > It did. It went straight into QT with the PNG female it was to be paired with. When the female broke down after starting to recover, the decision was made to move it to another well-established tank in isolation. So your facts are wrong on this one.
MSB > 2. It should have never been exposed to any possibility of stresses as you did by allowing it to be in a system where another fish could have pecked at his fins.
MP > Your opinion. I look and say “it’s a MAROON CLOWN”, it should handle itself. And still, I took the precautions of protecting it from even it’s second-choice selected mate (the Labrador), and when fish were nipping at it through the eggcrate barrier, they were removed immediately. In my opinion, took very reasonable precautionary measures to protect this fish from interactions with other fish, while at the same time affording it the opportunity to mate, as a male, with a large (but less than ideal) female Maroon mate.
MSB > why you would expose such a rare clown to delay or perhaps never spawn by taking care of it in such a manner.
MP > That’s just it, I did not expose it to “delay”…it has had the Labrador mate available to it for months now. So once again, your facts are wrong.
MSB > This statement (regarding my choice to not offer the Lightning Maroon a Bubble Tip Anemone host because it may wander and sting other corals) clearly shows you are choosing to use the tank for your own preferences and likings and not first and foremost for the Lightning Maroon.
MP > Wow, you certainly like to put a spin on things. If you really have clownfish breeding experience, substantial experience, you’d know that in commercial settings clowfish are not normally given ANY live host. You’d also know that they certainly do not require an anemone for spawning, and in fact, many breeders look at the inclusion of an anemone as problematic, not beneficial. So no, the reality is that I put the SPS as a priority over an ANEMONE. Has nothing to do with the Lightning Maroon, who truly will not be affected in either direction by this choice.
MSB > The fact is and as you have stated that even just moving a breeding pair can put a halt to that pair ever breeding again. I agree that patience is important when breeding any kind of marine organism and that cannot be argued with. However, your actions could easily be causing undue delay to the breeding process for the Lightning Maroon.
MP > This is simply conjecture and arguing what-ifs. The fact remains that there has been an available mate for the Lightning Maroon pretty much during this whole process. Sure, if I had the resources and space of a large commercial hatchery, I probably could’ve just thrown this fish in with every spawning female Maroon I had until I got a spawn. And that just as easily might have gotten it killed.
MSB > You have been given a big responsibility in preserving this rare clownfish and for future generations. PNG is closed for the time being and it’s not unlikely to think that you may be the only one to ever get a wild caught Lightning Maroon. By not taking every precaution possible to care for, breed and raise the offspring of such a rare clownfish is an irresponsible act!
MP > Being patient and cautious and sticking to a plan of doing it the “right” way vs. the “quickest” way is hardly irresponsible. But in the end, my plan is not the plan that other breeders would have implemented. The people involved who had a say chose my plan, not the others. If you need a refresher of the plan, please see the “about” link for the site.
So while you may continue to be critical, most of the critique levied is either opinion where neither of us can be right or wrong (well, I’m more right because it’s my project, not yours), or a misrepresentation of the facts solely to attack my efforts at this project. So we’ll probably have to just disagree going forward.