Lol...wow nice to see I have so many believers here..jk.
Seriously though before you flatly accuse me of lying a little Q and A is in line don't you think? Who is to say I am necessarily a "newbie"? Moreover I never said a pairing of his manner is risk free, however using a little common sense can significantly reduce the chance of failure, and the statement...
--"If it was me, I'd use a big perc and a baby maroon,,, I think the chances of success would be higher."
...clearly indicates a lack of "common sense."
While many of you may not think it possible to have a succesful long term relationship between a maroon and an Ocellaris look at the facts on hand and the personalities of the fish involved.
We know that in general female maroons are the bad boys of clown world where as the Ocellaris tend to be (again I stress TEND TO BE...) the pansies who are just as happy to aquiesce.
As long as someone uses common sense and observes carefully this sort of pairing has many things going in its favor that others interspecific pairings simply do not.
For example maroons and Ocellaris have similar body shapes and striping scheme. This immediately puts them in at an advantage to get along, I mean if a chrys and a sandaracinos will choose each other and breed why do you find it so hard to believe two similar looking fish could do the same? Furthermore unlike other known hybrids, Biaculateus and Ocellaris have a very very similar agression/submission dance...
The best chance of a succesful pairing of this manner (IME) is by introducing a LARGE female maroon with a SMALL male Ocellaris (I have not found maroon/perc pairings to be as smooth as frequently the percs are much more stubborn than the Ocellaris, again all IME.)into a neutral territory WITH NO ANEMONES.
Juck, putting a large perc/ocellaris with a smaller marron doesn't make much sense considering the personalities of the fish. Have you ever raised marrons? The little snots are terrors even when they are barely half an inch long so what would make you think a marron will give into a fish that is anything less than overly dominering as the female maroons are so prone to be?
Akbuur, I wish you the best of luck and it sounds like your well on your way to a successful maroon/perc pair
Colby