The Blood Orange Clownfish looks at once very familiar but also inherently different. If you can’t put your finger on it that’s because the Blood Orange Clownfish is a hybrid between a maroon clownfish and an ocellaris clownfish – the two most popular species from the anemonefish group.
This is not the first time ORA has offered hybrid clownfish for sale but the origin of the Blood Orange Clownfish is very different. Previous ORA hybrid clownfish have been a result of accidental fertilization from different clownfish species across different aquariums linked up on the same system. By contrast, the Blood Orange clownfish is the result of an intentional cross, resulting from a pairing of one gold stripe maroon clownfish and one ocellaris clownfish.
The resulting cross of the gold stripe maroon and ocellaris clownfish has created a beautiful brilliant orange clownfish whose color neatly straddles Nemo’s light orange color and the deep maroon coloration of Premnas biaculeatum. The Blood Orange clownfish also inherits slightly longer, larger finnage, it is likely to grow to a large size and the stripes are likely to change in size as the fish get older.
The story of how ORA came to posess and breed the Blood Orange clownfish is a great read, so be sure to visit the ORA Blog and look out for this new clownfish variety to become available to retailers beginning next week.
