Neptune Aquatics

Ocellaris Clown Fish Questions

I have a few questions regarding my ocellaris clownfish. I got them about 9 months ago from All About Fish. They had been in the store for about four months before I bought them. They were in the same tank together and were both about 1.5". I'm almost positive that they were tank raised. I think they were about 8 months old since they were only 1.5" or so and tank raised. That would make them currently about 1 1/2 years old. One of them has an orange face which is turning black extreeeeemely slowly. They are now about 2.25" from nose to the tip of their tails. They slept one laying on top of the other when I had them in my 14g. Now they sleep in the 8" & 10" anemones (which overlap each other) so they are within an 8" or smaller area of each other. My first question is if they are both female. It worries me since they are both the same size and sometimes fight a bit every now and then that they might be a bonded female pair. If that isn't the case and they are a bonded male-female pair will one of them shrink and the other get bigger when/if they start to spawn? I've always seen in pairs at the LFS the male is smaller than the female but these are both about 2.25". How big will they get and if they are going to become a pair will one stay at 2.25" and the other grown to 3.5" or so?
If they are going to become a mating pair at what age will this start to happen? I've heard they become mature between 12-24 months so could mine since mine are 17 months could they still be juveniles?
The one that used to be submissive is seeming to be dominant now so do you think if they were both still juveniles that it turned into an adult and gained dominance since the other one might still be juvenile?
:~
 
A CB clown will cost more and almost always will be a selling point denoted on the tank. pound for pound CB clowns cost about double that of a wild.
 
I'm not clownfish expert, maybe Robin can chime in here?

But if you've had them for 9 months, and they've been in the store for 4 more on top of that, I would think if it was a male-female pair (those sometime are also marketing ploys they use :D), one would be noticeably larger than the other.

Now here's my question, lets assume they both are females now, are you going to get rid of them just because they aren't a mating pair?
 
Euphyllia said:
I'm almost positive that they were tank raised.

Euphyllia said:
I think they were about 8 months old since they were only 1.5" or so and tank raised


How do you know, or what makes you think this?

I have a bonded pair of Ocellaris I received from another reefer who breeds them, and I received my Ocellaris at roughly 6 months of age. Even up to today occasionally the female makes the male perform his "shiver dance." It used to occur much more frequently, however in the past half year or so, it has slowed down a bit (probably attributed to her massive growth spurt); the female just makes the male dance once in a while to reassert her dominance. And FWIW, my bonded pair is ~17 months old, and the female is significantly larger than the male.

Euphyllia said:
If they are going to become a mating pair at what age will this start to happen?

There is no set age as to when they begin to spawn. It is not unheard of for clowns to be well matured, and bonded and still not spawn for a long while ... well past "12-24 months."

IIRC, clownfish are protandrous hermaphrodites, so even a small clownfish can be way older than you think.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Now here's my question, lets assume they both are females now, are you going to get rid of them just because they aren't a mating pair?

If they still have the same status within a year I would probably trade them out for two juveniles or trade one of them for a male.
I wouldn't get rid of them if they weren't a mating pair (I'd be perfectly happy with a male-female pair that don't mate), but I'd get rid of them because they are both female. But how/when will I be able to tell if they are a male-female pair or a female-female pair? If they are a male-female pair, when will the female get larger than the male?
 
This morning I was looking at my tank and noticed that one of my clowns (the one with the orange face) was about 1 tail length bigger than the other (about 1/2" bigger than the other!)
This has happened very recently (about one month or so) because I had never noticed that before. I think the are becoming a pair and I no longer think they might both be female...
 
I am kind of having the same issues as you are having, mine are siblings from Fingerwrinkles, one picks on the other a lot they get cozy for about a minute then the pecking happens again. They are still really small though, and I don't think they have figured out what sex they are.
 
I used to have two orange ocellaris siblings. At that time I was just a beginner in the hobby and got tired of their fighting so I took them back and bought my Black Ocellaris which I have today. The orange ocellaris that I took back were in All About Fish's 8g display tank but they keep swapping out the clowns to make it look like they have a maturing pair. Anyways, my black clowns never really fought. They were the only two the LFS had gotten in in their shipment and they were both in the same tank for four months so I think they had gotten over the fighting phase. They've been a bonded pair ever since I got them and I think they have finally matured into adults. There is no telling when they'll get out of their fighting phase. I've seen two juveniles that were about four months old decided who will be male and who will be female in less than a week and quit fighting, but then there are some that never give for a long time. Clownfish are just very confusing creatures.
 
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