Breaking and making pairs

[Moort82]

I've had a pair of clowns for 6 years. About a year ago the female lost weight and began to sit around all the time. She has partly reovered but never really put the weight back on. She seems healthy enough but unfortunately isn't interested in spawning any more. I believe she was barren anyway as the eggs were very white and never came to anything. The male however still actively cleans and tries to get the female interested, she just normally swims off and it doesn't seem like a normal pair anymore.

My question is i have a beautiful little male who lost his partner recently. I took him in and was wondering if it would be better to split the pair up and introduce the new clown to the older male in the hope of breeding them. If so is it ok to just swap them over? would the old male likely go for the new clown unless he was kept on his own for a week or two (still thinking he has his wife to protect). Will the female be ok on her own? I don't want to pair her up again as she will go in with my seahorses and i don't want any complications from a pair.

Thanks in adavnce.

 

[mrbigshot]

you could put the two males together but they will have to be physically separated for some time. i would say at least a month if not two. i would get a breeder net or build a box out of egg crate, they need to interact but be safe because they will fight. it takes much longer than a week for a male to become female, generally its at least 6 months but closer to a year for most fish.

you never mentioned the size of the fish. being they are both males i would think neither is over 2 1/2 inches, if they are close to the same size they might need to be separated for much, much longer. 3 months or more.

 

[Moort82]

Thanks i wasn't thinking that one would change that quickly, more that it would have to accept the new one. I didn't think two males together was a problem. I know they will squabble as this is part of the pairing process but didn't think it would be any different to when you start with baby clowns from a lfs.
The older male is fully grown for a male so yeah around 2 1/2 inches, the smaller is still a real baby and about half that. I have an egg crate acclimation box that i use when i introduce new fish but was more worried about the fact that taking the older female out and adding the new male would mean the male sees it as an attacker in their territory.