Best place to buy pairs?

[Roy G. Biv]

Is it more common to buy 5 clowns etc.. and wait for a pair to emerge, or is it more common to buy them at a pair. I am having a tough time finding pairs at a reasonable price.

 

[Finious]

Well you can buy two small clowns and wait till they mature (this could take years) and they will fight. You can buy a pair, however you never know the age (are they very old and past prime,are they still young) even if they are laying eggs the move can change that. Or what I do is get a young looking but large one and put it with a smaller (hopefully not a juvenile), this makes for almost no fighting and a better chance that I do not have to wait too long. Hope this helps, good luck.

 

[Roy G. Biv]

Good point.. When buying pairs of fish, you could get grandparents

 

[Baalz]

Speaking for Ocellaris..

Buy two small young captive bred clowns and you will have a pair. Yes you can get a bad apple but it is pretty rare.

 

[Roy G. Biv]

I have access to a local distributor. I also have a buddy that owns a LFS.. I spoke with him and agreed that he would pay me the wholesale price of extra fish that dont pair up. I was thinking of going in and buying 5-6 of a few kinds of fish. Ill wait a few days for them to pair up and get rid of the extras. I know this works for bangaii's, does this work for others?

I wanted to try this with orchid dottybacks, clowns, cardinals.. I may actually try the one large, one small method for the clowns, I never had a "mated" pair from this, but I have certainly gotten inseperatable pairs at least.

 

[Atticus]

Clowns are best placed in the one large one small class of pairing. Cardinals typically are pretty easy to pair or leave in a school as long as they are not bangaii.