The Lightning Project

The ongoing saga of the PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish breeding project.

Browsing Posts in Lightning Maroon Updates

As I turned the specimen cup over on the male PNG Maroon this afternoon, the fish struggled not to leave the protective confines of its plastic prison. It took only 5 seconds to understand why – it was immediately met with violent attacks from the Lightning Maroon Clownfish. After a minute or two of watching, […]

It’s Monday, June 21st, and the power is out as I write this.  Thankfully, Friday June 17th, I had just installed a pair of APC Battery Backups I had picked up on a gift card from Best Buy (a 5 year anniversary gift from work – thanks guys). Of course, I had looked into generators, […]

Pairing remains at a standstill for the Lightning Maroon, in large part given my desire to sit in front of the tank for an extended period and keep a watchful eye over the interactions so I can intervene if need be. Meanwhile, I’ve been digging through my circle of fish friends and trying to see […]

Once again, trying to pair up the Lightning Maroon.  It has been almost 2 months since I tried introducing the small proven male PNG Maroon Clown with the Lightning Clownfish back on April 11th, and a few days later it did it’s own pairing attempt overnight on the 14th.  I didn’t realize it had been […]

Things have gone well for the Lightning Maroon.  It is now FULLY recovered from the damage it sustained back in February.  The interesting part is that since the introduction of the smaller male, there have been behavioral changes.  Specifically, the Lightning undergone a dramatic uptick in digging and rearranging and generally causing issues with the […]

I’ve been watching the tank these past few weeks and looking at coral health. I probably should be keeping track of actual water changes, but I haven’t. The other night, I did one and reserved the water for a pre-water change and post-water change test comparision. Here’s how things shook out. PRE water change: Specific […]

So, Tuesday night, guess who spent the night in the tank? That’s right, the little male PNG Maroon. No additional damage, but the little male was banished to the area between the specimen cup and the glass of the tank…only “safe place” for him. On the one hand, happy it wasn’t dead…this is a big […]

As promised, finally, the process of pairing up the Lightning Maroon with a known male PNG Maroon is finally underway. To put it bluntly, without a doubt I am convinced that for the last year, the Lightning Maroon has been male.  Why?  Well, first, watch this video of the female Gold Stripe Maroon that used […]

Real quickly, I have tons of videos uploading to Youtube but they’re taking all freakin’ day (I shot a lot this weekend). Lots of interesting stuff on the pairing front coming. In the meantime, I’m doing a water test…here’s where we sit: Temp (Neptune) – 79.5F pH (Seachem) – 8.2 pH (Neptune) – 8.25 Alkalinity […]

No time to post more now, but I wanted to put it on record that the pairing process started today. I receive a shipment of coral from Upscales in Portland, which included 2 massive Birdsnests from Jim Blegen of Seahorse Northwest and a stunning little Gold Stripe Maroon that Travis had at his shop. Ironically […]