<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7050103#post7050103 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by David M
So a couple questions if you don't mind, did you start with an adult pair or did you just get some little ones & grow 'em out. If so how long did it take?, I hear they reluctant spawners. Finally are they from the ORA stock or another surce?
They are both ORA's and I bought them 2 1/2 years ago at about 3/4" - 1" (closer to 1"). Both were the same size, and obviously juveniles. The LFS I worked in got a batch of about 20, and believe it or not, these were the 2 left after the first 18 sold. So I didn't even get "pick of the litter". The bosses there made us get last dibs quite often.
They started to differentiate in size about a year after I received them, though they seemed to pair bond early on. They never strayed far from one another. When the female began a major growth spurt, the male began cleaning like a crazy man. He cleaned everything for like a year and a half. Originally I had them in a 30g breeder with no other fish, and a few small RBTA's which they had no interest in. A few months ago one of my local friends (theTiler) had a major tank mishap, and I ended up with a few of his large GBTAs. I put the GBTA's in a cube tank that sits between my wifes and my computer desks and moved them in a few days later. (so in short, there's always constant activity outside their tank). They took an immediate interest in the larger BTA's, and a few months later we noticed the first spawn (we noticed it on the day before the night they hatched, talk about lucky!). I have done ok with the babies, considering I am really a beginner breeder, but 5 1/2 days after the hatch I noticed a new nest.
Mind you, I have not done anything to really induce a spawn. No special foods (they eat Spectrum Thera+ pellets and the occassional frozen hikari mysid cube), no heavy water changes (the tank seems to be on autopilot, and with a low bioload, basically a pair of clowns, pair of redheaded gobies and 4 GBTA's) it seems to do well enough without much interaction. I haven't noticed a raise or lowering of the temp (79.5 pretty stable), and I havent simulated any plankton blooms.
Scott, aka Traveller7, told me his pair were very regular for 6 nests before he moved them, then they decided to take a break.
As for the cross breeding, I haven't needed to teach them a thing. No other clowns have been with them since I've had them, and they just did it on their own. I thought the most recent nest was going to hatch last night (it didn't so tonight is the night), and I noticed something peculiar. I know fry are not immune to anemone stings, and I did notice that for almost 4 hours after lights out, the male seemed to be diligently moving any anemone tentacle that would impede the fry from getting to the surface. He just kept going back and forth, constantly moving the anemone tentacles out of the way. Interesting to watch for sure, since he never did this for just the nest, and both of them seem to love nuzzling in their anemones (they adopted 3 out of the 4, the 4th on the back wall gets ignored)...
I'll keep you posted on how regularly they spawn, and if I make any changes, but for now, it works for them, it works for me, and I'm not going to mess that up. 2 1/2 years is a long wait.
BTW, here's a pic of the happy parents with their BTA's
Uh... maybe "L"-ta 
