First, here's a recent picture of our "Breeding Tank" that the pair of clowns resides in (I really should drag one up for a year back so you can see how much it's changed!)
So, here's the short version. These clowns were the first fish for the first saltwater tank I personally kept since maybe 2000? Yes, I'd been out of the saltwater side of things personally for MANY years - was all tied up in the African Cichlids.
Well, "Mama" and "Little Man" were picked up when I worked a stint last summer at a LFS (was looking for computer work but needed something to bring in the $$$ so I got back into the retail side of the industry, again...). We had these two Onyx percs just "sitting around" in a little cube system...the shop owner felt that it was impossible to pair true percs. Well, I picked these two, placed them together and in seconds the larger one grabbed the little one by the tail and started dragging him around the tank....obviously it wasn't going to be that simple
So...these two percs spent a week in side-by-side cubicles..they could see and smell each other but couldn't physically make contact. After that week, the larger perc was added into the smaller's cube - things went JUST FINE!
Well, as soon as Renee's 24 gallon Nanocube was ready this pair of fish came home and got their names..."Mama" and "Little Man". They officially came home on June 20th, 2005.
On January 18th of 2006 these guys surived a catastrophe...to this day I cannot explain it but we had a near total loss on the tank about 24 hours after a water change. All parameters were fine...we lost a coral beauty, neon goby, tailspot blenny etc...yet all the corals were fine. The clowns were at the surface looking just about DEAD, all milky white. To this day I'll never know what went wrong but somehow the clowns made it.
So our percs have made it through a lot, and since January, maybe February of this year they have been cleaning their nest site. I was starting to think this was NEVER going to happen. In fact, looking at how the pair looked pre-spawn, I actually think it MAY have happened once or twice already and I just didn't "catch on". No matter..the big difference lately was simply a feeding regine change with the addition of the pair of Flame Angels...I've definitely gotten back to feeding the tank more frequently and even more so with vegetable-based diets (i.e. Formula 2 is fed first thing every morning now). I can't say for sure that the feeding change had anything to do with it or not as I've tried "saturation feeding" in the past...it's definitely possible though.
Currently, they share their 24 gallon reef with a pair of Flame Angelfish, "Fuego" our Purple Firefish, and a lone Pearly Jawfish that lost it's mate. There's absolutely gobs of invertebrate life in the tank.
So that's the background on this tank. Next post - VIDS of pre-spawn cleaning and the actual spawning that took place this evening.
Matt
