next time you get such a creature, let me know – and then save it for me? following such a notification, i will figure out how to set up a small reef tank and bring the mutant faced fishlet back to CA the next time i visit….

Stores generally won’t take malformed fish, especially fish as common as False Perculas. If I keep them indefinitely it means I have less tank space for raising more babies, which means I have to let more hatchlings get eaten. Also, when they get bigger they get more aggressive and beat up on the other babies.

The freezer is supposed to be a pretty humane way to euthanize fish. Since they are cold blooded their metabolisms just slow down and they go to sleep. It’s not clear to me that they even have the capacity to sense cold. Once they have died I take them out of the freezer, let the ice melt, and flush them.

If you would like an army of deformed clownfish I’d be happy to give them to you instead of putting them in the freezer.

i remember the mutant black and white clownfish from boston tropical (and then towers). he wasn’t frozen. i liked him.