A question for the experts.

1jared1

New member
Ok, here's the situation; I bought three B/W Ocellaris clowns back in August of 2006. They were all about the same size when I got them. Over the next couple of months they started to work out the pecking order and their sizes changed accordingly. So now I have three different sized clowns. As usual the biggest clown would pick on the middle clown and the middle clown would pick on the smallest clown, but recently the biggest and the smallest clowns have been inseparable and the middle sized clown has been off cowering in a corner of the tank. Could it be that the female has chosen the smaller clown as a mate instead of the medium sized clown? Should I remove one of the clowns and if so which one? The big clown and the medium clown aren't that far apart in size, could I have two females?
 
In the tank environment, harems rarely work out with clowns... you're seeing normal behavior for a pair with a sexually immature third.

Remove one of the smaller ones before it's too late (I'd take out the smallest as clowns take their male to female sexual cue from hormones in the water [the current theory anyways] so you shouldn't have two female false percs in there).
 
Based on what I have read here i would remove the middle one and keep the big and small one together as a pair.
 
yes take out the middle child poor guy but he will be much happier alone and so will the new couple
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9132444#post9132444 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GSMguy
yes take out the middle child poor guy but he will be much happier alone and so will the new couple

This is the right answer.

The black variant of A. ocellaris tend to have small males. The female has made her choice, trust it.
 
I think that's what I will do, take the medium one out. Anyone have thoughts on pairing the medium clown up with a small GSM clown? Thanks for the help everyone!
 
Agree, take out middle.
GSM's are hard to pair w/ their own as it is, don't think that would happen w/ an occ.
 
Not likely, but hey you never know for sure what fish will do.
I had 2 occs and a maroon way back that seemed to get along, for about 6 mo.
I was all stoked at first, and posted here, and people all said check back later.
Well, they were right, maroon matured and kicked both occs butts, really bad.
I was left w/ 2 almost dead occs and one badly scarred maroon.
Had to get rid of occs.
 
I've heard of all these other mixed couples. Why wouldn't the maroon stay a male if the B/W Occ. is a female or closer to being one than the maroon?
 
Note that they are not of the same genus.

Maroon and Occelaris clowns are pretty different, and so it depends entirely on your individuals if it's going to be a successful pairing.
 
maroon clowns and occelaris are not at all a pair that work whil all clownfish or anemonefishes are similar is one way (they host) besides the the maroon is a premnas fish and all other clowns are amorphiron SP? anyway try a pink skunk/occelaris pair that would be eisier

anything would be better than a GSM with another type of clown they usually kill even their mates eventually given enough time
 
FWIW: There has been a least one person on this board who has produced ocellaris X maroon babies. I'm pretty sure in his case the female was the ocellaris.
Proaquatix is a commercial breeder that was selling ocellaris x maroon hybrids that they called Coco clowns.
It is not a likely pairing, but can never say never with clownfish.
 
The male B/W Occ. that I have now is about 1-3/4" long and the maroon I plan on getting will be probably be 1/2" to 3/4" long. Do you think that would be a big enough size difference?
 
There are no absolutes when you are mixing species with different personalities.
I'm not sure what you are going for here. Do you want babies? Because the maroon x ocellaris babies are not very attractive. Add the black coloring to the mix and I don't think it will be much better.
If you are just going for an unusual pair, IMHO a mixed pair of clowns is not very asthetically pleasing. Its sort of like having a clown and a Flame angel that hangs around the anemone. The mixed pair just sort of looks out of place.
 
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