A.Theillei ,anybody tried it?

[velvetelvis]

FWIW, I would not have tried to pair up a female that has already had another mate. The instinct in established females to chase away other fish is very strong, even stronger than her desire to find a mate. I have found it very difficult to re-pair female clowns when their mate dies. It is way easier to add a juvie to an established male and wait a few months for the male to change over. If the ocellaris pair was yours and you still have the male, I would try him instead of the female.
The other best option would be to get two juvie fish to start with. Yes, they still might break up when the female gets to breeding size, but at least the male will know how to appease her a little at that point.

Is this true for all clownfish, or just the species being discussed? I ask because I'm trying to pair my CB female nigripes up with a small juvenile, after having to remove the male that she was previously "paired" with (I don't think they ever bonded--she was bullying him at the store).

 

[WDLV]

If true, I doubt it is a hard and fast rule. One example is that my thiellei#3 was previously owned by another reefer. While she was small she was likely already female. I personally attempted to hook her up with a sandaracinos. On transfer to a friend he too was unable to get the two to pair up. I suggested he introduce a male ocellaris from a breeding pair that had lost it's female. On doing so, he had instant success with the pairing.
I had a 14 year old female ocellaris who readily accepted a number of male fish that I needed to keep male over the course of four years. Including several A. ocellaris, A. perculas, an A. sandaracnos and my #1 male (now female) A. thiellei.

Big mama's original mate of 11 years.

Big mama and Penelope.

This one's just for gits and shiggles.

 

[phender]

Is this true for all clownfish, or just the species being discussed? I ask because I'm trying to pair my CB female nigripes up with a small juvenile, after having to remove the male that she was previously "paired" with (I don't think they ever bonded--she was bullying him at the store).

This is not a "rule", it is just my experience. Changing/rearranging tanks or moving the female to a completely different tank will make things easier. Some females are more accepting than others.

 

[Clownfishfan]

I had to put the occy into the 2l bottle because the skunk kept jumping out,but while they were together (this time atleast)they got along without as much squabbling ,think It's safe to say it's a juv? I think maybe if it's still like this in 2 weeks maybe but 2 days is way too soon.
What would they do if it was 2 female though? I've heard they fight to the death but over how long a period of time 1 hour,1 day,when they get around to it,a month?I would assume that they would fight a lot worse than they wee whenever they are together especially in such a small space..,

 

[WDLV]

Minutes, weeks... It's subjective.

 

[Clownfishfan]

I knew it...

 

[Clownfishfan]

What is the difference between a.akalopisos and a.sandarcinos?

 

[MarinaP]

"Amphiprion sandaracinos is very similar, but brighter orange in colour, and its more vivid white stripe is broader; teeth of A. sandaracinos are conical rather than incisiform as in A. akallopisos."

http://www.nhm.ku.edu/inverts/ebooks/ch2.html#akall

 

[WDLV]

Region, pigmentation, stripe length and possibly dorsal spines and gill rakers. Don't ask me about A. pacificus

 

[Clownfishfan]

Thanks!

Today there seems to be very little aggression except when I first let the occy out of the bottle(they are always separated unless I can watch them) otherwise they are fine.they are definantly not a pair yet ,they stay pretty far apart(occy in front sandy in back).

 

[Clownfishfan]

I contacted someone who tried the same thing I am doing,He said:

When I experimented I had 9 mated pairs if I remember correctly, 5 pairs had Ocellaris females and 4 had Sandarcinos females.
My experience is to take the largest Ocellaris you can find, 3+" would be good and a Sandarcinos about 2" or slightly smaller,both
Ocellaris and Sandaricinos should be wild caught.

Introduce the two fish at the same time or have the male in the tank for at least a week provide lots of hiding places for the male in
case the female gets aggressive. My experience of introducing them at the same time has worked the best.

(I asked if he had issues with aggression as they became mature) I had no issues because a 3" ocellaris or sandarcinos would generally be matured and that is also the reason
I do not use juveniles or sub-adults.

Of my 9 pairs only 2 pairs were consistant in producing Thiellei like offsprings.
Photo period 12 & 12( 6500-7500K), water tempt 82F,* PH 8.3,* each
pair was housed in a 15-20gal glass tank with an aqua clear 70 hang on filter
I changed about 2 gallons of water every day on those 9 tanks. Each tank had an independent filtration system via the aqua clear 70. No water was ever shared
between the 9 tanks.

They were fed 6 times daily, a mixture of salmon,tuna,kelp,krill,squid,mussel,shrimp was their daily diet. Decap San Francisco brine shrimp eggs was added
twice daily to simulate a plankton bloom in addition to their obvious nutritional value.

More to come later!

 

[Clownfishfan]

I contacted someone who tried the same thing I am doing,He said:

When I experimented I had 9 mated pairs if I remember correctly, 5 pairs had Ocellaris females and 4 had Sandarcinos females.
My experience is to take the largest Ocellaris you can find, 3+" would be good and a Sandarcinos about 2" or slightly smaller,both
Ocellaris and Sandaricinos should be wild caught.

Introduce the two fish at the same time or have the male in the tank for at least a week provide lots of hiding places for the male in
case the female gets aggressive. My experience of introducing them at the same time has worked the best.

(I asked if he had issues with aggression as they became mature) I had no issues because a 3" ocellaris or sandarcinos would generally be matured and that is also the reason
I do not use juveniles or sub-adults.

Of my 9 pairs only 2 pairs were consistant in producing Thiellei like offsprings.
Photo period 12 & 12( 6500-7500K), water tempt 82F,* PH 8.3,* each
pair was housed in a 15-20gal glass tank with an aqua clear 70 hang on filter
I changed about 2 gallons of water every day on those 9 tanks. Each tank had an independent filtration system via the aqua clear 70. No water was ever shared
between the 9 tanks.

They were fed 6 times daily, a mixture of salmon,tuna,kelp,krill,squid,mussel,shrimp was their daily diet. Decap San Francisco brine shrimp eggs was added
twice daily to simulate a plankton bloom in addition to their obvious nutritional value.

More to come later!

 

[Clownfishfan]

I asked which pair produced more theillei
His reply,
* Occ female & sand male procduce the most thiellei like offsprings, its much easier to keep them in a smaller tank.

I also asked if the fry were any diffrent to raise
He said,
Nothing special or different was done to raise the larve.

 

[WDLV]

If true, its a shame not to document it for posterity.

 

[MarinaP]

Where are the offsprings now?

 

[Clownfishfan]

I asked him what happened to the adults and offspring ,he said

I unpaired them with same species and gave them away, gave 12 of the offsprings away and my 12" lionfish had the rest for lunch and dinner. I have one it my private collection, but you couldn't tell it was CB it looked identical to my WC specimen.

 

[WDLV]

Hmmmm. Culled to the infamous lionfish. Where have I heard that before?

 

[Clownfishfan]

I have seen many people do it. If I had a large hungry fish thats what I would do!

 

[Clownfishfan]

Do you think light color matters?

 

[WDLV]

I once bought a pair of pink skunks that were almost white. After several months, they were a nice pink color. I would be hard pressed to kill a thiellei over a slight hue difference. If it were five ocellaris out of a batch of 300? Well that's different. Major malformations like gill flare, deformed or missing fins, major over/underbite, spine issues etc. are reasonable. If I had five successful out of a batch of thielle but they had minor defects, i, I might keep them as an insurance policy.