Increase in oddball clowns?

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I don't think the frequent saddle oddballs that we are seeing is from a new collection point. Just a guess here, but it may be they way they are being specially breed with induced hormones. They just look weird now at small sizes than they did a few years back. Maybe, someone with knowledge can chime in.
 
There is no new collection location, clown loaches are collected in the same areas as they always have been collected, West Kalimantan (primarily the upper reaches of the Kapuas River aka Kapuas Hulu), and the districts of Jambi and Palembang in Sumatra.

As far hormones, I don't know of any commercial breeders that are currently breeding CL's, using hormones or otherwise. I know that it's been done by at least one farm in Florida, but that was a few yrs ago and I don't believe that it paid off for them. In SE Asia, it is far cheaper just to buy wild caught specimens.
 
I've been collecting odd ball Clown for a while in the past. I would pick and purchase the odd ball clown from a batch in the LFS which can be as rare as one in 20 to 30. Unfortunately, I had ick epidsodes from time to time that wiped out most of my collection.

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I am now down to three odd ball clown in my collection. They are between 6 to 7 inch long, and I can't remember how long I have them, probably around 7 to 8 year. I call them the three Amigos as they always hang out together. One of them is very fat and I wonder if it is a female carring eggs, and the other two are slender. At that size, they still attempt to squeeze and dissappear into the rock caves so I have to be careful to provide tight heavy rock to prevent falling.

Video of my 3 Amigos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C4tEATso88

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I went to my lfs in south germany and had to ask the owner whether he could get in a batch of wild form cl's :jaw-dropp cause only 3 of the 20 cl's in stock weren't oddballs. Some of the oddballs also had short heads.
 
Wild form CL's? Methinks some folks are assuming that in nature, oddball patterns are never seen. I suggest you speak to some of the collectors/exporters in Borneo & Sumatra.
 
only three fish in 20 with a basic three stripe pattern is a little bit unusual don't you think.... If your questioning my experience then you may want to consider that among other things I have also been the livestock manager for one of the biggest pet shop chains in europe
 
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