Aimforever
Premium Member
I have had a spotted mandarin for a little over a year, and it is one of my favorite fish. It is fat and healthy and I have always wished I had a mated pair. As far as I know, the best way to tell male from female is by the relative length of the first spine of the dorsal fin. This spine (sorry for not knowing proper terminology) is at most 1-2mm above the dorsal fin on the mandarin I have had for a long time, so when I saw one at the LFS today that had a spine over 1 cm I thought it must be a male. It is smaller than the female I have already, so I thought I would give it a try. Hopefully my amatuer sexing was correct...
The two have been in my tank for about 2 hours now, and everytime they encounter each other they get excited, raise their fins and move around each other in circles. There has been a small amount of chasing but no obvious attacking. I cannot tell if their anxious/hostile behavior is part of becoming a pair or if in fact it is an aggressive display and signs of worse things to come. Their encounters only last a few minutes, and then one runs off. When they bump into each other it starts all over again. I have a second reef to move the new guy to if things don't work out, but are there any characteristic signs to look for?
The two have been in my tank for about 2 hours now, and everytime they encounter each other they get excited, raise their fins and move around each other in circles. There has been a small amount of chasing but no obvious attacking. I cannot tell if their anxious/hostile behavior is part of becoming a pair or if in fact it is an aggressive display and signs of worse things to come. Their encounters only last a few minutes, and then one runs off. When they bump into each other it starts all over again. I have a second reef to move the new guy to if things don't work out, but are there any characteristic signs to look for?
