Age/size of sexual maturity

[dgiglio]

I am trying to find out how large/old do clowns have to be to start the start the spawning process. I have a snow flake clown and a ocellaris clown that are about 1-2" inches long and Seem too young to start. But they seem to be buddy'ing up. "Twitching" & " rubbing" together. So I guess my question is how old do clowns have to be spawn And would there be a compatibility issue with these two?

 

[hvacman250]

Should be no compatibility issue.

Im assuming the male is the Occy on the right and the female is the Snow on the left. I would say the male looks to be a year old or so and the female not quite 1.5 yrs old.

The twitching just means they are becoming a bonded pair. Some "pairs" never breed. Some pairs break up. Either way, I would GUESS you have at least another year or two before I would expect anything to happen. All the egg laying females I have seen have been 2.5-3"+ long.

But, there are no absolutes. I had something go awry in my 225 gallon reef. I lost 8 fish over a week; never figured out what happened, just did massive water changes until things got better. The Occy pair in that tank laid their first ever batch of eggs while fish were dying. So go figure...

 

[dgiglio]

Should be no compatibility issue.

Im assuming the male is the Occy on the right and the female is the Snow on the left. I would say the male looks to be a year old or so and the female not quite 1.5 yrs old.

The twitching just means they are becoming a bonded pair. Some "pairs" never breed. Some pairs break up. Either way, I would GUESS you have at least another year or two before I would expect anything to happen. All the egg laying females I have seen have been 2.5-3"+ long.

But, there are no absolutes. I had something go awry in my 225 gallon reef. I lost 8 fish over a week; never figured out what happened, just did massive water changes until things got better. The Occy pair in that tank laid their first ever batch of eggs while fish were dying. So go figure...

Yeah maybe with the 8 fish Out of the way they felt like they had room to make some babies. Who knows( only the fish gods). Well thanks alot for your help and good luck! Thanks
D.G

 

[jbax]

maybe the 8 fish were a threat to the clowns. so they waited till it was safe to spawn. but it sucks to loose that many fish.