Back in the late fall of 2010 and winter-spring 2011 my clown pair started spawning and I was planning to try to raise some fry, but I had a partial tank crash late spring that year. Over the last year the pair was moved a few times as went through different plans for what to do with them and with how I was going to reset up my tank.
Late winter this year I decided to set my tank back up as a fowlr, and put the pair back in the tank. Just about the time all the fish seemed to be settling in together and everything was running well, my male clown went carpet surfing. In mid May my lfs got in some ORA tr percs, including one that looks to me to be a decent picasso pattern. The picasso was not much more than an inch at the time, and my female is close to if not more than 3 inches.
They paired up almost immediately when introduced to each other, but I did not expect him to be sexually mature for a while, he was smaller than my previous male when it was purchased and it took the previous pairing a year to start spawning.
A month ago I noticed the pair scrubbing my overflow pipe on day and I thought it looked like prespawning behavior, but since they had only been together a month and he is still very small I didn't expect them to spawn. The next day they had a small spawn on the pipe, maybe 200 eggs, probably less than that.
In the last 4 weeks they have spawned 4 times, the tank is warm with the summer heat and the eggs are hatching at 7 days, and she is relaying on the 8th or 9th day. Todays spawn is double the size of any previous hatch I have seen from her, even from before when I had counts in 400 range. The angle of the spot they have chosen makes photos nearly impossible.
I was wondering if anyone else has had a mature female take an immature male as a mate instantly, and then had him sexually mature within a month?
The male is still less than an inch and a half nose to tip of tail. I have also seen recommendations not to add fish if you want a pair to spawn, and I added a Singapore Angel (Chaetodontoplus mesoleucus) to the tank less than a week before they started spawning.
Late winter this year I decided to set my tank back up as a fowlr, and put the pair back in the tank. Just about the time all the fish seemed to be settling in together and everything was running well, my male clown went carpet surfing. In mid May my lfs got in some ORA tr percs, including one that looks to me to be a decent picasso pattern. The picasso was not much more than an inch at the time, and my female is close to if not more than 3 inches.
They paired up almost immediately when introduced to each other, but I did not expect him to be sexually mature for a while, he was smaller than my previous male when it was purchased and it took the previous pairing a year to start spawning.
A month ago I noticed the pair scrubbing my overflow pipe on day and I thought it looked like prespawning behavior, but since they had only been together a month and he is still very small I didn't expect them to spawn. The next day they had a small spawn on the pipe, maybe 200 eggs, probably less than that.
In the last 4 weeks they have spawned 4 times, the tank is warm with the summer heat and the eggs are hatching at 7 days, and she is relaying on the 8th or 9th day. Todays spawn is double the size of any previous hatch I have seen from her, even from before when I had counts in 400 range. The angle of the spot they have chosen makes photos nearly impossible.
I was wondering if anyone else has had a mature female take an immature male as a mate instantly, and then had him sexually mature within a month?
The male is still less than an inch and a half nose to tip of tail. I have also seen recommendations not to add fish if you want a pair to spawn, and I added a Singapore Angel (Chaetodontoplus mesoleucus) to the tank less than a week before they started spawning.
