I can see your son has the correct taste ;)

just looked at the link.......OMG! what is wrong with that poor fish????....Looks like it has that Micheal Jackson thing going on:mrgreen:

That is not accurate. These are F1 babies which means both the parents are wild caught. In this case, the parents were collected in Papua New Guinea at different times. The breeder, Matt Pedersen, worked at it for several years trying to pair up the Lightning Maroon. He also paid $2500 for the fish without any guarantees for a reproductive future. The babies offered for sale right now are from the only successful spawning from the pair so far. It has been many months with no more reproductive activity. These are indeed quite rare!

http://reefbuilders.com/2010/03/30/l...d-fishbreeder/

http://reefbuilders.com/2012/05/09/l...ownfish-spawn/

This is what the female looks like. It is expected the white pattern on the babies will develop to look like the female.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_li...2ajzo1_400.jpg

I'd say i***i is going to be the winner, he jumped the bid from $800 to $1500 and then was outbidded 11 times...he's in the lead now though. I'd like to see the winners display tank if this is what they are willing to spend on one fish just imagine the tank it's going into!!!

The seller has 5 of these guys on for bidding right now...imagine 5 x $6000+ ...Yes please!!!!

Only two are "Lighting", the others are normal-ish bars. The normal barred ones are less than $1000. But yeah, nice pay back!

Ops sorry. I should have elaborated. By "extensive", I meant the three year (or so) time that the breeder put into to get this fish to this stage. :redface:

I am sure i***i will just put it in the tank, throw a party at his beach house (highly likely), show off his new score, end the party and start searching for the next new "ornament" while his employees take care of the fish (with the rest of the tank).

Better hope he doesn't get ich....:twised:

Did you guys notice that "i***i" has the top bid on both of the Lightning Maroons? He's sitting at a $11,200 total right now. :eek:

Whoever winning the bids must be a clown fish breeder. Now we know the lightning pattern on the mother is genetic. It's a matter of time before we have more clown fish with that pattern by breeding using F1 and later generations. IMO, $6K is a small price for such a (potentially) valuable fish.

Or maybe he/she is just an inside person trying to bump up the price ;)