perculas: known female and known male, how long to pair up...

[flipteg]

i've had a true percula, Hyori, by herself for about 20 months now... about a year ago, i bought a smaller percula to try to pair it with her but after only 2 weeks, it came down with something and went belly up... Hyori constantly fighting with the new fish didn't help any to settle the fish down either...

i've been waiting for a chance to get another one and then today i bought a new percula... Hyori is almost twice the size of this new fish... the pet store was selling this fish as part of a pair... but when i got there, i was looking at it's supposed mate, dead... the dead fish looked more mature, and bigger, so i presumed that the one i bought was the male of the two...

i was just wondering, assuming that i have one of each sex, how long does it usually take for the fishes to pair up...? i'm just a little worried that the new fish, like the last one, will get beat up so much again and not survive before the pair bonding is formed...

by the way, Hyori doesn't seem to beat this new fish up as much as the last one... after i put it in earlier today, Hyori was sizing up the new fish... a few minutes later, it was getting beat up, as expected... but after about an hour, it stopped... they've been together for a good few hours now and i have not seen the big fish take a nip at the little fish since the initial aggression...

 

[Anemone]

Well, the pairing could already have occurred, or it might be weeks of fighting. It's different with every pairing, depending on the individual fish.

I'd be a little more concerned with taking a fish from a tank in which its supposed mate had just died and immediately putting it in with your resident female. I hope the female at the pet store didn't die of disease..... You might want to think about having an emergency treatment tank and meds available if your fish get ill.

Kevin

 

[flipteg]

here are pictures of the new fish... the new one is a much lighter orange... i'm not sure if it's because the black parts has not completely developed yet... those are micro bubbles... the skimmer has just been cleaned...

http://picasaweb.google.com/ffaustino11/HyoriAndNewFriend?authkey=d-SZnqei26E

pardon the quality... it's very hard taking good pictures of clownfishes... as long as i have owned Hyori and all the pictures i have taken of her, i think there's only 2 or 3 of those that i really like...

 

[flipteg]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10288631#post10288631 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Anemone
Well, the pairing could already have occurred, or it might be weeks of fighting. It's different with every pairing, depending on the individual fish.

I'd be a little more concerned with taking a fish from a tank in which its supposed mate had just died and immediately putting it in with your resident female. I hope the female at the pet store didn't die of disease..... You might want to think about having an emergency treatment tank and meds available if your fish get ill.

Kevin

i understand your concerns but that was a risk i was willing to take... putting the new fish in quarrantine for a couple of days would do little in disease prevention... it's just not long enough... on the other hand, longer than that, and i risk the new fish turning into a female...

 

[flipteg]

just a little update... i think these two fishes have paired up already as Anemone stated above... the two fishes are really close to each other all the time... and other than the initial aggression that i saw, the big fish seems really accepting of the new fish... as i said above, this was not the case last year with the other clownfish that i tried to pair up with her...

 

[dc]

Glad it worked out.

 

[jubbers]

i have a small false percula and i found out they don't like be alone he was alone for about six months and i think he stayed juvenile because he is still small. anyways i bought a larger percula and for the past couple of weeks the larger of them has been darting at the smaller ocassionally the small one turns side ways and shakes. Are they pairing up? do i have two females? how long will it take for them to start spawning?

 

[flipteg]

here are some pictures of the two clownfishes sleeping beside each other... keep in mind that this is during lights out... i felt kinda bad cause i was using flash while they were trying to sleep...

 

[SethSPST]

Nice Pics, she sure looks mad that you woke her up.