How long for clowns to pair?

[rovster]

Hi all, hoping for some insight. I am currently in the process of transferring the contents of my nano into a temp holding tank in preparation for bringing my big tank in the house. As part of the process, I wanted to add a clown with the goal of having it pair with the current one. I don't want to bread them, just would like them to bond if possible.

My existing clown is like 3 years old. It's a black occelaris. I bought a much smaller davinci occelaris that has been in the holding tank for a couple of weeks and has settled nicely.

Obviously, my biggest concern is mynbig clown wont accept the new one and bully to death. Last night I introduced mama clown at lights out. Was watching them for any aggression but did not notice any. They were at seperate ends of the tank. This morning I get up hoping to not find little Nemo on the floor, and to my suprise bothe clowns are hanging out in the corner together.:bounce1:

So far so good. I will be watching them like a hawk this weekend, and am ready to pull one of them if it gets out of hand. I guess what my real question is how long assuming no aggression can I sleep ant night knowing they'll get along? My black clown has always been aggressive to my hand, and vehemently defends its turf anytime another fish has been in my nano.

Any comments appreciated. Will post pics later

 

[Saltliquid]

Usually over night, if they are the correct match.
But then again it can take years until something sets the wheels in motion.

My two in this pic are one of a clarkii/latezonatus hybrid and the other is a common latezonatus, for two years the hybrid was an outcast.
I put in a conspict and all hell broke loose and at the end the medium lat protected the hybrid that was getting the hell bashed out of it by the conspict that it use to bully and now all get on well?
So there are no actual times for this, just what would usually happen!

 

[rovster]

Thanks. Been watching them this morning. The little one is following mama around the entire tank. Just fed both of them. They ate together, no aggression that I could tell. The little one looks very interested, mama is just doing her thing. I purposely got a small one so there would be no question who was boss.

 

[Saltliquid]

The big one doesn’t have to be a female, it can quite easily be a male, and the size thing of female being larger then a male is a fallacy!
The small one, if it is under 15 to 20 mill in length is able to be the opposite sex to the other.
Under this size they can change at any time to suit and take the place of someone that was killed by predators usually while protecting its partner while she is laying eggs, so I suppose it usually is the female that lives on quite large.
You see the layer may get attacked some times and the other gets killed protecting her, the dam thin scorpion fish are the worst at this!
The little clowns in anemones are doing just that while living with larger ones if they tolerate them, they wait for one of the partnership to die and take on that sex and grow quickly.
When you buy a pair and the size is different, the collector just put a small one with the larger as we use to when commercially collecting or the partner died and this is the replacement that was on hand to replace it or it turned up as a planktonic sized amphiprion ready to find a new life and take on the needed sex.
Oh and if they wobble heaps, that means they submit and they usually don't get picked on if they can wobble really good.

By wobbling I mean bobbing up and down a from side to side the way amphiprions and juvenile sweet lip do this.