Successfully pairied my GSMs! (PICS)

[Tahlequah]

Well, after a very stressful day my maroons descided that they could get along. By this evening my smaller maroon was rubbing on the underside of my female maroon, and on the rock above their new anemone. They are both wild caught, I have had the larger maroon for about 6 months now. I planned on waiting another week or 2 before introducing it to my other clown, but I had an ammonia spike that I got really worried about and went ahead and started the introduction.

For a couple of weeks I had a 2.5gal tank set right up against my main tank. I used the 2.5g tank as my quarantine tank for the new GSM. The two GSMs would look at each other but mostly ignored the other. Last night I cut up a lid for a disposable container and put sand in it for weight.

I then acclimated the new maroon in the container. I left the container in the aquarium over night. This morning my wife was freaking out because "Mr. Maroon" was no where to be seen! My wife thought "Mrs. Maroon" had killed him. Well, I found him hiding behind one of my power heads. With about 3 chunks of his fins missing. I once again put him in the container thinking that he would learn to go in and out of the lid to be a little bit more safe from Mrs. Maroon. After that I had to leave for work.

When I came back they were at least hospitable to each other. By this evening they were quite a bit more receptive to each other. Here are some pics of their story.


Here is my current female.

Here is the new guy!

Here is the container of safety.

Finally they like each other!!!

 

[GSMguy]

awsome congrats

 

[ReefNeck]

Wow! Great job! If I had posted pics a month ago I would sue you for copyright infringement! j/k,

It's funny how you did yours step by step the way I did and I never posted how I did it.

Conratulations!

 

[TOURKID]

beautiful

 

[Slakker]

They are gorgeous, for sure. Congrats on the success!

 

[Tahlequah]

Thanks! I got lucky I guess.

 

[tpdpercula]

Very nice GSMs, keep us updated please.

-Ian

 

[Tahlequah]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11139629#post11139629 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tpdpercula
Very nice GSMs, keep us updated please.

-Ian

Thanks, will do.


I do have one question. The male keeps rubbing his belly around on the rocks when the female comes around the anemone. Just wondering if this is a common mating ritual. And the female started nipping at my kenya tree which is a little close to her original anemone.
The original one is a little to small for her so I added a new one that she has finally descided she likes, I did this so that the smaller one could recover from her agressive rubbing.

 

[Tahlequah]

Hello,

It has been 5 years now since I paired my GSMs. I am sure everyone will be happy to know that they are still together. They have laid many sets of eggs but I have (unfortunately) not had the ability to raise them.

This should be changing within the next few weeks. I will be moving them to their own aquarium. Hopefully from there I will be able to set up a tank to raise the next generation of GSMs.

I am worried that they will quite spawning soon, due to age.

 

[Tahoe Reefer]

Awsome update and you bring up an interesting question. How long will a pair of clowns spawn for? I've personaly only seen a pair spawn for 3 years before being sold. I would assume if they can live 20+ years they would spawn for more than 5 years.

 

[velvetelvis]

Congrats!

According to ORA, they have some pairs of GSMs that have been spawning for decades.

 

[Seagars]

Like a proud parent

 

[Tahlequah]

Thank you all for your kind words. I hope to start raising them later this year. Just gotta get the setup to do it.

It has been fun having them. They beat up my tang (had to give him to someone with a larger tank anyways), move my corals around, stir up my sand bed, and bite anything that touches the water, but I wouldn't trade them for anything.