Percula

S

staguardianangel

I recently got a small(1") percula, would now be a good time to find a mate for him?, I mean while he still hasn't settled completely in the aquarium, and another quick question.... How long do they take to settle, mine just swims in circles, and stays constantly near the edge, never going near the LR, or the mushrooms... just wanting to ask a few questions
 
my perc never paid any attention to anything or anybody else in the tank, except when it was feeding time. The one (major) exception to this was when he developed the habit of beating up on my royal gramma. I think they just like to be out and noticed. My Nemo practically jumps out of the tank at feeding time trying to get the food before anyone else.
 
You could add a (larger) female. If you wait too long your male will become a female. I have two small percs from Andy. They are very active swimmers. They tend to stay in the upper half of the tank. They also act like they are trying to host my maxi jet :? I'd say yours is still trying to settle into it's new home. As long as he's eating and doesn't appear stressed he'll be OK.
 
he's definately eating, he acts like he's starving, always the first to the top, and always the last on the bottom, chasing food like it's gold, so I need to get a larger percula? Anyone got ahold of Andy? I tried calling but only got anwsering machines, and voice mail, I hoped to get one of his, but this one came up, and I still wanted to get a mate for him
 
He's been out of town but I think he's back. Try calling again.

Typically you don't get a larger one. You get one that is half the size of what is in your tank currently.
 
Typically they start turning into females within a week of isolation which is why you always add smaller because they can't go back to males. It's a one way street to the ultimate in the fish world, being a female!

Yours is so small though he may still be a juvi and so adding another that size or smaller should be fine. They'll figure it out!
 
I went the opposite way on purchasing my clowns. I acutally had the male for several years before purchasing a bigger female later on. Now I have a mating pair. I have seen allot of information of people having success both ways.
 
Mat,
Not to be argumentative, but what you say seems to contradict someone I consider an expert in the field. Joyce Wilkerson's book "Clownfishes" addresses the sexing of clowns.
According to her, a solitary clown will become female in the <u>absence
</u> of another female. That assures there is always a female to procreate. My experience with clownes at least (false percs) has been exactly as she describes. Surely if you had a single clownfish for years it would have become female. Once this happens there's no going back to male either. Strange.....
JMO
 
You' re right George even that lady we had at last years NextWave conference discussing anemones said the same thing. Anytime a clownfish becomes solitary it is female or becomes female.
 
Well thats what the forums are for......discussion. I have not read that book. I have been looking for a good book lately on raising the fry since the clowns have been spawning regularly, and I have seen some reccomendations from the forum. I have not purchased one yet though.

Since I have not read the book, I have not heard that the clowns will turn female if left alone. Now I have heard that all clowns are born males and one will turn female upon pairing up.

WEll I bought the male clown at petco years ago and migrated him from tank to tank...About four of them I think. I bought the female from DNA, and it was wild caught. It took them some time to pair up once introduced. She was at least twice his size and still is. They are now spawning.

I was told to get a bigger clown....IE most likely to be a female when I purchased a new clown to mate with the one i had. I was told it was the best chance to get a mating pair and it worked.

I'm not telling you this information to put down your book....I'm just telling you the facts from my experience.
 
Clowns are born all juveniles (neither sex). That book I mentioned is IMO the best overall view of clowns. Here's a link: http://tinyurl.com/9784n
 
WEll I have seen that book referred to as a good reference and I have considered buying the book. I have been sent some reference material from that book from some fellow reefers in rearing the fry. The first thirteen days or so are the roughest trying to get them to the final transformation stages to a little nemo and that is what I'm experiencing right now.

I have not formed any opinions about any of the books thus far, because I have not read enough of them to form an opinion. As far as the fish being all males....I guess the aurthors are not reffering to the fry..You can find reference on that all over the internet.. Here is a link for referance...

http://www.coralreefalliance.org/professorpolyp/2002/november.html

Upon reading your excerpt about a male changing to female...I have found some interesting reading on the internet. Most references are referring to clown fish in the wild where one anemone host many clown fish. There is one dominant male and one dominant female. In addition there are 3-4 non-breeding males hosting within in the anemone. If something happens to the female the upmost male will increase size and become the female and one of the 3-4 non breeding males will become the new dominant male.

Sounds more like the same heirchy as the Anthias. Its interesting reading. Well anyway there are lots of people on the forums who have mating pairs from buying the female second after the male, so the material must be pertaining to large wild social groups. Thats my guess from what I have read tonight.
 
Here are a few pics of the first set of eggs they had. The first pic was on day two I think and the second shot is several days later after the eyes started to form. The pics are not real great, its hard to get a good picture, since they lay the eggs underneath the anemone somewhat. They actual layed some eggs on Christmas which was a nice unexpected XMAS present. I was happy.
 
I've read about how clowns mature and in tanks with only 1 clown and it is expected that the fish has become female after awhile, but after reading what mtraylor says, I wonder if it's possible that his clown was introduced to his tank as a juvenile and being at the bottom of the social hierarchy compared to all the other fish, it never matured. Even though it was the only clownfish, in it's little world the other fish were boss so it stayed a juvenile. Maybe the little clown got to move up in the hierarchy when the female was introduced as she may have been more aggressive and bossed the other fish and she wanted a mate.

Just a thought.
 
Thats interesting that you say that. When the female was introduced to the tank. The male did not have any black coloring above his head. After a year or so it developed the black tint above its head (I'm assuming this is the color change to maturity) and shortly there after they started to spawn. I think you probably hit the nail on the head. The male was very small when I purchased it from Petco.
 
Why is this thread scrolling off the screen at least by 3?
 
Just a friendly note, when you're posting a really ugly hairy long URL, go to www.tinyurl.com and TinyURL it... You paste the big hairy ugly URL into that page, and it gives you a TinyURL to use instead, that redirects to the big ugly URL... Thus, the screen scrolling ugly URL above becomes:

http://tinyurl.com/9784n

(Moderator, if it's Kosher, feel free to edit the post with the big URL and replace it with the one I just put in, if that's okay...)
 
Done. Thanks Brian. That worked perfectly. Why didn't you speak up sooner, before my eyeballs scrolled out of my head? :roll: :wink:
 
Been meaning to do a quick write-up about TinyURL'ing big URL's and trying to get it as a Sticky, or at least a post in the Open forum, just haven't had a chance to do so... If more people knew about it and how to use it (Quite easy to do so) it'd help a lot around here IMHO...
 
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