Im Pretty Sure....

[GAB99]

my clownfish are gonna have babys, they are cleaning a piece of th live rock and seem to be "practicing" layig eggs and what not.


i honestly cannot keep the babys, and im moving at the end of may, and the biggest tank i can get is about 10 gallons. do you think they might survive in the main tank?

 

[VictorMeldrew]

Hopfully Nemo might be on later, he might be able to tell you more about this, check out the journal you might find the answer there

 

[-Nemo-]

cleaning up is not necessarily an action of breeding, but is often an action of the two pairing up. How big are your clownfish? If there is no noticeable female yet, than it is impossible. In the off-chance they do lay eggs, they will probably not survive. Between the filtration, very little/no food, and predation from mommy and daddy there isn't much chance for them.

 

[GAB99]

they are also practice mating as well, is this also a part of the pairing up?

they seem about 2" right now


thanks, will i have to suck out the corpsesof the babys whenever i see them or will the CUC get them?

 

[-Nemo-]

If they are both the same size and at two inches, there cannot be a sexually mature female yet, so I would not worry about babies any time soon, they are still young ones.

What do you mean "practicing mating" ?

 

[steelhealr]

Doubt they are mating also. Clownfish do funny things (those clowns). SH

 

[GAB99]

they do all sorts of twitchy/jerky things on the rock, it looks like all they are missing is eggs and "fertilizer"


does this mean like a bond is being created between the 2? and then when they grow-up they will mate?

 

[-Nemo-]

Two juvenile clowns (or just two male clowns in general) of the same species will almost always pair up. Right now both of your clowns sound like they are both juveniles which means they are both males. Whenever there is/are male/s and no females, the more dominant or largest male will change into a female. Your clowns sound like they are currently in this process. The twitching going on is your two clowns establishing dominance and submissiveness between each other, so basically right now they are deciding who will become the female. They will probably continue this behavior for a while, even after a maturing female becomes present. Your female will be much larger than the male (mine is about twice the size of my male), probably around 4 or 5". After your female appears and matures, then you can hope for eggs .

For future reference, a sign that eggs will be laid is the appearance of the ovipositor from the female and the sperm duct from the male. They look like little white tubes extending from their bellies. They usually appear as the pair as cleaning up and doing their mating behavior and means the eggs will be laid within hours.