Hi all

I recently had a pair of Maroon Clowns that got along well. One was a bit bigger than the other and the two had formed a pair and had all the indications, by their body language, of eventually breeding.
The smaller fish mysteriously went AWOL. I pulled some late night observation missions to see if I had a stow away that was eating the fish, but I never saw anything. By the way I have a 200 gallon tank so finding predators such as crabs and such might not be easy.
Anyway I broke down and went to my LFS and got another Maroon. The fish in the store were all about the same size, which was roughly the size of the one back in my reef, so i picked the biggest one and brought him/her home. The established clown has not really rolled out the red carpet, infact he has been quit aggressive towards his tank mate. Has my attempt at being a match-maker failed? Should I stick it out a bit longer or figure something else out? Any feed back would be greatly appreciated cause I running out of lies to tell my kids when they ask, "Why is Nemo so bad?"

Maroons are a bit testy.....I'd have gone with a MUCH smaller Maroon.

What I really wanted was a much bigger clown. Regardless that still leaves me with a dilema.:raining:

I believe I would have gone with a smaller one too. If your current clown has already become a female, then you would want a junenile clown to pair with her.

Hi Max341 and :welcome: to TR.

The biggest clown in a pair is the female. A juvenile can become a male and a male can become a female but females cannot go back to being male or juvenile. If you start with 2 juveniles the dominant one will become female and the other a male. So chances are that the fish you already had is a female. If you had bought a much larger clown chances are that it would have been a female and they probably would have fought to the death. How long have you had the new fish?

Hey Carmie

Thanks for the warm welcome. I have had the new fish for about 10 days. Things have really settled down between the two clowns. They are behaving and there are no signs of aggression from either party. The new fish still doesn't wander throughout the tank. The more established clown fish comes over to engage in what seems like a pairing ritual and it seems like it wants the other clown to follow it over to where the prevoius pair have there anemone but the new guy is not interested. We will wait and see what happens.:eek:

It sounds like they are progressing in the right direction. Keep us posted. Have you posted any pictures of your tank? (I was at MACNA and am behind on reading posts.) I'd love to see some.