Lost female Clown, what's the best way to get back to a pair?

[Morrisons]

Tonight we lost the female of our Clownfish pair. It appears she got sucked up against an older pump we had in the tank and died.


The mail is small only about 1", the tank is 55 gallons. Should we:

A) Add a new pair to the tank, and leave the original male?
B) Buy one clownfish and start over?
c) Sell the male and buy a new pair?

I'd like to keep the male and just add a new pair if possible.

(FYI, we've removed that pump from the tank).

-Mike

 

[ThRoewer]

Which species of clownfish and how large was the female?

 

[worm5406]

Since one is still a male it might be better to get one that is larger than the male and let it switch to a female. Once they start the switch they can never go back though.

 

[ThRoewer]

I would say at 1 inch even a percula or ocellaris is neither male or female but just a juvenile.

Option A: If you add another pair (under a pair of clownfish I understand an adult mated pair or at least 2 sub adults that have figured out who is who and bonded) you risk that they kill your existing fish. In that case it would be better to go with Option C.

Option B: In this case the best would be to add one that is about 50% larger to make a pair.

So your best options are B and C

 

[Morrisons]

Yea the pair where ocellaris clown fish, one male 1 inch, the female a little over an inch. The female was the one that died. I think I will most likely do option B, get a larger than one inch ocellaris clown fish and add it to the tank and wait to see what happens

 

[Sapelo]

Oh I hate having to make this decision. Good luck!

 

[Morrisons]

Here's a picture of the smaller one (we are guessing he's male). The larger one only recently started to do that little dance around this one.

I would estimate he's about an inch long. The one that died was about an inch and a half long.

-Mike