Help Re-Pairing Please

[DivaMan]

I am waiting for my LFS to get another true perc in. When I bought my clown he was a widower, I had ordered a true perc pair, but the female died in LFS quarantine. The male however, survived. I have had him for over 2 months now. I am wondering as to how I should pair him up. I am thinking of going to Live Aquaria and buying a small percula there. As you can specify the size. Is this what I should do. I want to buy wild to be sure they pair,and that the other will host. My clown currently hosts. Are there any alternatives?

 

[dantodd]

Your best bet all around is to get a small captive bred ocellaris at the LFS. It will be healthy, will pair and host fine. However; if you choose to get a smaller fish the bigger fish (who will eventually be female) will very likely not let the new fish in the anemone for a little while.

 

[DivaMan]

One Problem

One Problem

My clown is percula, and I dont really want an ocellaris, and Id like them to host. I knew about the not letting into anemone thing. I just really like the coloration on perculas. Will captive bred Black and white percula work? Or will captive bred percula work? Thanks for the help. By the way with your building tanks for special needs kids, I cant send a money donation, but I can send some larghe snails, and a small frag of some fast growing pipe organ corals.

 

[dantodd]

Thanks Diva, Snails are great. I don't have lights for corals yet.

Percula would be the same approach. B&W perc should be fine if you prefer their look. I know that some here have paired percs of different coloration. I don't really know about the comparitive probability of pair between diff. color morphs and same color morphs. I personally like more traditional pairs like you might see in the ocean so I try to get fish with the same color, but that is purely a personal pref.

 

[Flighty]

My 2¢ -

I would recommend going to the LFS and finding a healthy looking tank of young captive breed fish. (any color of ocellaris or percula will pretty much work the same so it is up to your preference) Observe them for a while and pick the second or third most dominant. As long as you are looking at a tank of fish smaller than your single, any of them will work except for the largest who may be working on becoming a female. I think that with percs it is best to go with the healthiest strongest one you can - that would be the one that was winning out the dominance race for becoming the male. Sometimes the female is more likely to accept a strong healthy mate she can boss around when she would reject a week one.

Don't skip the QT time. Clowns so often catch nasty things either at the store from other fish or in the wild and they often look fine for up to four weeks before showing that fatal bug.

 

[DivaMan]

Actually my lfs does a 3 week QT on everything that arrives. He will sell stuff that has not been QT'd but he tells you to QT. Thanks for the info. The only problem is is that he hasnt gotten in any clowns in a while. Then again I havent been there in 2.5 months. Need to give him a call.

 

[OrionN]

I would call up Rod and order small Onyx A. percula that he raise. These are small exceptional color A. percula. There is a long thread about his baby Onyx Percula on this forum. He will have young fish for you.
Keep in mind that Percula, unlike Ocellaris, developes color very slowly. It can be a year or even two before all the white bars, and the black color develope.
Here is a link to the thread I mention:
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=833027&highlight=rods+onyx

 

[DivaMan]

So, judging by what was said above, do you think that I could pair an onyx percula and a reg percula up, because it lookslike for most of the onyx's clown's life, it looks like a regular percula? Also, I dont want my current clown to kill a very young clown if I get one, how old, and how large are the clowns that rod sells?

 

[OrionN]

Onyx Percula ia an A. percula with certain color, not a separate species. It is not true that Onyx looks like regular percula for most of it's life (?20 years). It is true that A. percula color take longer to develope than A. ocellaris. It may be two years from birth that a A. percula fully develope, as oppose to A. ocellaris where the time is about 6-8 months.
An Onyx percula is a percula with black color connects all three white bars. Some people also think that the dorsal fin must be black also.
Why don't you talk to Rod and ask him the other questions. Here is his web site:
http://www.rods-reef.com/general.php

 

[DivaMan]

I do know that they are A. percula, the question is is will my reg percula accept a onyx as its mate? I will ask him some questions.