Adding a male maroon clown???

[Joe LoPresti]

I have a large female maroon and I've always wanted to add a male. I bought her from the LFS super cheap, the guy just wanted to get rid of her. If I could have I would have bought a pair, but she was cool and I felt sorry for her.
I've had her for over a year now and she is quite the nasty wench!! LOL
She will attack my hand when I put it in the tank AND if I take the lid off and put my face over the top, she will actually swim to the surface and jump. She's jumped out once. Hell hath no fury like a female maroon clown scorned, but I still love her!!!
I'm guessing that with her I probably would be unable to add a male, but I'd really like to try. Any advice out there??? I've read that if I find a really small male I might have luck.

 

[maww]

I just successfully introduced a male to my female marroon. She also had been on her own for well over a year, and is very territorial. I have tried twice in the past without success. This time, I added a second anemone to the tank first- in a location away from hers. She ignored it completely. After a week for the new anemone to settle in, I added a small (<2inch) guy, in a net breeder/isolator, placed fairly close to her.She could see him, but pretty much ignored him. After a week of this, I moved the isolator over to the new anemone, and slowly released the male into it. He swam right in. They've been together for about a month now. She will occasionall come over too his anemone, and he swims up to meet her with a shimmy dance. For the first day or two she would hover over his anemone and threaten him, but she never nipped him even once. I was prepared to keep moving him back into the isolator as long as needed for her to accept him.

 

[catdoc]

The first time I paired my female, she was the new addition so the male already had his territory. She took to him immediately. A few months later, he died for unknown reasons (I suspect internal parasites b/c he kept getting thinner and thinner, in spite of eating well). The second attempt at pairing her was BRUTAL! I added him to the tank and she tore into him--I gave it 10 minutes and then netted him and put him back in QT. I actually drove an hour to return him to the store I bought him from, stopped in to visit another clown-keeper who persuaded me to give it another try. We both thought he just "looked" male. I know you're not supposed to be able to sex them on sight, but the female really did have a more blocky, bulldog-looking appearance.

The second try was just as brutal as the first but I let it go longer. She injured him (ripped off a third of his fin--since grown back) and chased him to absolute exhaustion. Once he was so exhausted that he couldn't flee anymore (he just drifted when she rammed him), it was like a switch flipped. She started swimming from him to the rbta and back again. It was as though she was inviting him home! They've been great ever since and they started spawning 8 months later. She's still the toughest fish in the tank and has bitten me several times, but she's my favorite too!