Love lost between latz

[landlord]

So the female in my breeding pair must have finally had enough?? Not sure but after laying a batch of eggs about 4 days ago, which she has done regularly for a couple of months now, everything seemed normal. Male did his part and it seemed to be business as usual.

So later the next day, the female decides to eat all of the eggs, this has not happened to date. After that she became extremely aggressive towards the male. Much more than normal. The male has been wedging himself into hiding spots all over the tank and seems to not come out for food for fear of her wrath. I finally started using a turkey baster to get food into this hole he was living in and he did take the food eagerly.

So I move this one rock fearing that if this guy doesn't come out he's a goner for sure (starvation). The female was simply relentless in her harassment. Hours of it! Oddly, the male is not doing the normal submissive "shaking" like he used to do.

So I'm totally bummed out and cannot figure out what, if anything I should do. She needs to freaking relax and he needs to be submissive, then they need to get back into theor egg laying routine...

Reaching out for any sage advice! Pairs like these are few and far between your help is appreciated.

Thanks

Kurt

 

[Big E]

First things first.............get them seperated with a divider or a breeder box for the male so she doesn't kill him.

 

[landlord]

Just gonna see if I can find a piece of egg crate and plop it right down the center of their tank. You're absolutely correct. Egg laying aside if he dies I'm screwed.

Have you seen this otpe of behavior before???

Thanks for the reply!

Kurt

 

[Chelsey]

If I had to guess, and I can't really point you in the direction of any scientific papers to document this, I would say your male is in the process of turning female.

I've had fish spawn and then suddenly decide that they hate their mate, eat their eggs, and either kill the "male" or harass "him" until I move the other fish out of the tank. In particular this has happened with a pair of sebaes, a pair of clarkiis, and a pair of orange ocellaris that I know of or have and witnessed all of this first-hand. Usually these are older fish that have been spawning for quite some time and are quite large. If your female ate the eggs and you didn't see any development I'd venture to guess that they spawned and since the male was in the process of changing he couldn't fertilize the eggs. The female realized the eggs weren't any good and ate them, and then decided that the potential "female" fish was invading her territory. Your male isn't shimmying and being submissive because he's no longer a male/fully a male, and doesn't feel the need to be submissive because he's not in a pair anymore. Again, I'm just going from a few oddball firsthand experiences, and I haven't run across any manuscripts to document this (though I haven't been looking either ).

What's the size difference between your male and female?

Were the eggs laid by the female fertile?

I hope this is of some help to you, even if it isn't what you wanted to hear I could be totally wrong, but it's happened with a few pairs of mine.

 

[BonsaiNut]

This approach will also work. The nice thing about this one is that it allows the male to be closer to the female and in proximity to the anemone/spawn site. At the beginning, she won't like the jar, not one bit But she gets used to it pretty quickly.

 

[landlord]

Thanks for the insight Chelsey. So the male and female have been laying fertile eggs for several months straight. I hatched out about 150 of them maybe 2 weeks ago. This batch had no noticeable differences. The tank temperature got a little colder (71 ish) than normal for this last round and I was attributing the eating to that, for lack of anything else to compare it too.

1. Male is definitely smaller by maybe 2 inches.

2. I can only guess that the eggs were fertile, they were a week prior, when I hatched a batch, and looked no different than any other time prior. Again the tank did get colder than normal by 3-4 degrees.

I want to hear anything and everything, and I appreciate your assistance. So if he is really turning she, that'll not make me too happy, just have to watch behavior after I separate them this afternoon.

Thanks Kurt

 

[landlord]

Bonsai - I like the idea but how do you feed? and where do you go from there?

 

[landlord]

Pics for reference on size

A Newer shot with eggs on rock

Thanks Again

 

[BonsaiNut]

Bonsai - I like the idea but how do you feed? and where do you go from there?

Food will get swept into the jar. Otherwise if he looks hungry you can squirt a baster into one of the holes.

I can't scientifically prove any of this, but I will just share my observations.

This has worked for me when the male clearly wants to be a male and is subservient to the female. This has worked for me when introducing a male to an established female - when I could only find a large healthy female and then had to wait until I was able to locate a smaller fish that I "hoped" would be a juvenile or a male. Rather than add the fish to the tank and hope for the best, I put it in the jar and see what happens.

I start with the jar as far from the female as possible - if the jar floats you can always put a small weight in it. I have witnessed lots of different reactions to initial contact over the years. Sometimes curiosity - sometimes outright hostility. The initial contact is no indicator of the ultimate success of pairing them up. What you WANT to see is the male chattering and shimmying and doing his tail dances in front of the female. The female will initially be very hostile but will stop trying to attack the male after a day or two when she can't get into the jar. Keep moving the jar closer until it is RIGHT on top of the anemone or wherever her base is. Wait until she completely ignores the presence of the male - other than to go "look" at him every now and then and see his tail dances. Do not release the male if she is still biting at or pushing at the jar. You want her to display no physical contact.

When you think she is "accepting" the male without charging at or biting at him, you can plan on releasing him from the jar. I recommend doing this after nightfall when the female is settled down. There should be a little "moonlight" in the tank so you can see what is going on. Remove the lid and hopefully the male will immediately go to the female and snuggle into the anemone. This has worked in all cases for me. What has NOT worked is whether the female will accept him. I don't have statistics but I'd say I have about a 75% success rate.

If the female rejects him, she will either do it immediately (bad sign) or in the morning. If she rejects him immediately (i.e. in the night) you may have a problem because she clearly does not want to share her space. You may want to try messing with her territoriality a little by re-aquascaping. You can also try a combination of re-aquascaping, adding a different anemone, etc. I have tried putting the female in the jar and letting the male into the anemone but that has not worked for me - when the female was let out she was hell bent on clearing out the area and was initially very aggressive.

If she lets him sleep in the anemone at night, but rejects him in the morning, it may just be a question of time. Try putting the male in the jar again and giving it a few more days. Patience is the key here. You want to bore her with the male. If she won't have him after two tries, I would try a different male.

 

[landlord]

Thank you very much for the description info. It essentially is a re-pair-ing exercise. I've got an old plastic container to try out when I get home.

I guess that rejection of a mate happens from time to time, I've just never experienced it. Figures it would happen to this pair. Wouldn't have hurt my feelings if it happened to my Tomatos :lol: or any of the eight other pairs.....

BonsaiNut / Chelsey - Thank you both for the replies. It's nice not to feel alone when problems arise.

I'll post an update if I can get these two back together.

Kurt

 

[BonsaiNut]

I was initially going to agree with Chelsey until I saw your photos. You male is a pretty young fish. I would be surprised if he is turning female. I can't prove that he isn't, but he seems small and young for it.

Is there anything else that might be upsetting your female? Did you change anything in the tank? Did you add anything OUTSIDE of the tank that might upset her - like Halloween decorations or lights that she isn't used to? Do you have a lot of visitors who come right up to the tank and look in? Do you take flash photos?

I can't prove any of this stuff would upset her, but different fish have different personalities. Some can be really skittish and react strongly to things outside of their tanks.

I wish you luck!

 

[BonsaiNut]

One last comment...

Sometimes when a male is getting his butt kicked he stops doing the tail dances altogether. He "gives up" if you will. I have put beaten males into the jar and once they realize they aren't about to get eaten, they perk up a little and start shimmying again. I think they need to feel reasonably safe before they start doing their tail dances - otherwise they just run for cover when they see the female approaching.

 

[landlord]

The only change was a drop in temperature, I mean sure we had Halloween stuff up, but they have been in a high traffic area for almost 2 years, and between me putting the larval snagger in and out there every 12 days, there is always some kind of hubbub going on in that tank, and my great room where the tank sits for that matter. She's a pretty surly fish for sure but the male always seems to appease her with submisive responses to her dominance, it's like someone flipped a switch on 'em.

They are both realtively young. He still has yellow in his tail and the female just about lost all of hers. I've had them two years and their previous owner couldn't have had them for too long, although I cannot say with any certainty how long.

Anyways, Thanks again, he'll be in a jug by 2:30 EST :lol:

 

[BonsaiNut]

Thank you very much for the description info. It essentially is a re-pair-ing exercise. I've got an old plastic container to try out when I get home.

I used an old soldering iron to make the holes. Fast and painless.

 

[landlord]

One last comment...

Sometimes when a male is getting his butt kicked he stops doing the tail dances altogether. He "gives up" if you will. I have put beaten males into the jar and once they realize they aren't about to get eaten, they perk up a little and start shimmying again. I think they need to feel reasonably safe before they start doing their tail dances - otherwise they just run for cover when they see the female approaching.

I can only hope he is still alive when I get home. Probably shouldn't have waited this long but with the egg laying and all I try hard to resist drastic changes. Hopefully it won't bite me in the butt.

 

[waldend]

Good luck Kurt. I was thinking the same as Chelsey but had dismissed the notion as I don't have a lot of long term experience with spawning pairs. I dont know if we collectively as a hobby have enough experience with these to know that they aren't different from other clowns though. I may be wrong on that though. The separate container thing is a good idea. Perhaps a breeder net with a little cover would work and allow easier feeding. I would be tempted to put the female in isolation over the male. Kevin K. Used this method to pair the last few McCullochs. I sure hope that he isnt changing on you. On the bright side, if it were to happen though it should be quicker and easier to get juvs to go male. Two pairs would be a good thing to have.

 

[BonsaiNut]

I would be tempted to put the female in isolation over the male. Kevin K. Used this method to pair the last few McCullochs.

Two comments because I have tried both:

If you use a breeder cage you want to use something that allows you to put the cage close to the anemone / in the "personal space" of the female. If you set up a breeder cage and the closest you can get it to the anemone is 12" or so, the female may not be truly be accepting the male since he is so far away. I like the "in your face" approach where she needs to accept him cause he is RIGHT THERE. By all means make sure that the breeder cage does NOT allow the female in, or the male to escape because you will have WWII. This may be less of an issue in a small breeder setup like a 10 gallon.

Also, as I posted above, I have tried the "cage the female" method. When I have done this when I release the female she always seems to want to establish dominance over the tank/anemone and is really harsh to any clowns that happen to already be there. This is my experience in a handful of cases (I did not do it more frequently because it wasn't working for me). I am intrigued if other people have been successful with this method. I had hoped that it would give the male a head start to establish residency and "invite" the female to join him. However this does not appear to be what happens in the wild. If there is a single adult clown in an anemone, it is always a female.

Again, I will freely admit I do not have as much experience pairing clowns as some of the pro breeders on this forum. However this is what I have experienced. I look forward to hearing good news!

 

[waldend]

Hey Bonsai. I wasn't meaning that comment as a contradictory statement to your recommendation. I was just thinking out loud more or less. The only time I know of this done was when Kevin did it. From his article his intent/results ended up being positive as a few days of being cooped up and no food took some fight out of the larger fish.

Whatever is happening is definitely odd.

 

[criccio]

Any thoughts of adding a third clown to the tank to draw the ire of the female and deflect the aggression away from the male. I have done this on a couple of occasions with success. Of course it must be a conspecific, and it must be the smallest clown in the tank. Obviously finding a smaller latz will be difficult, but a small polymnus might be a suitable choice.

Another thought would be to add another species of fish to act as a dither fish. Something to distract the female away from the male just until they can "right" themselves.

Just a couple of thoughts. Good luck with whatever you try Kurt.

 

[BonsaiNut]

Any thoughts of adding a third clown to the tank to draw the ire of the female and deflect the aggression away from the male. I have done this on a couple of occasions with success. Of course it must be a conspecific, and it must be the smallest clown in the tank. Obviously finding a smaller latz will be difficult, but a small polymnus might be a suitable choice.

Another thought would be to add another species of fish to act as a dither fish. Something to distract the female away from the male just until they can "right" themselves.

Just a couple of thoughts. Good luck with whatever you try Kurt.

I was actually going to mention this. With skittish clowns I often use a dither fish - something really active and bulletproof like (dare I say) a blue damsel or similar.