Maroon gold stripe clown sex

[edsreef]

Hi Frank,
Atfer reading some of the posts here I'm suddenly more confused as to the sex of my maroon g/s clownfish. I assumed I had a male because he seems to be staying fairly small. BTW, he (?) is the only clown in the tank and is hosted by a long tentacle anemone and is about 2". I've had him for several months and since he hasn't grown much assumed it was a male. I know the females get much bigger than the males. Since, I believe, these are the largest clowns, is there a way I can tell which sex I have so I will know what to expect in terms of maximum size? Is the size a good indicator of the sex in this fish? Is this fish actually both, or either sex?

[FMarini]

Hi:
Thanks for the email...
So w/ clowns it works like this, one of the fish will take on the female role and when given the opportunity it will make the switch. I believe the fish you have is infact a small male, and will stay this way until given the opportunity.
If you want to mate these fish i would find another one which is slightly bigger, the larger of the fish will become the dominant one and will become the female.
If you read Scott Michaels book "reef fish vol1" he explain alot better the way fishes go from one sex to another, something like protracted hermaphrodism(don't quote me on this word). Which I believe means all start out as males and when the need arises one (the dominat one) will switch to the female, when she dies or is removed the next highest dominant animal will become the female, and so on etc.
Back to your q?. You have a small male
does this help?
Hopefully i got this right
frank

[edsreef]

Thank you. Yes it definately helped.:)

[BLUESMAN]

One other point that I will make...since you are speaking about maroon clowns.With maroon clowns I have found that the female has to at LEAST twice the size of the male,better 3 times.Maroons are the hardiest of all the clowns to pair up....better to buy them as a pair.Good luck with your clowns......they are the best.