Match made in heaven?

[IslandCrow]

Well, I started take two of finding my maroon clownfish a date. I got my new clownfish in from Saltwaterfish.com just this past week, and this one is actually the perfect size. . .about 1". His stripes haven't even turned yellow yet, so a true juvenile. Anyway, just today I put him in the hang-in acrylic container I made for just the occasion. The plan was to have him inside the tank, visible to my larger clown, but separated. . .well, that worked for the first few hours. The big guy. . .sorry, lady. . .found him, made a few charges, and he did the submission dance, quivering, the works. So far, so good. After the first 30 minutes or so, he seemed to realize he was safe, and pretty much just ignored the "attacks". Well, my cleverly constructed holding container has one flaw. There's a small section on the bottom where I broke a piece of the acrylic while cutting it. It's not a very big opening, but obviously big enough for a 1" clownish. So, now he's in the main tank ahead of schedule. The good news is, he's so far unscathed. The attacks from the larger clownfish don't seem to be too brutal. The chases only last a couple seconds, and stop pretty much as soon as the smaller fish retreats. I'm a little nervous because I'll be at work all day tomorrow, but hopefully there are enough hiding spots for the little guy if he gets into any real trouble. I even made a container out of a plastic bottle with a hole only big enough for him if he's actually able to figure out it's a safe place to go. Ah well, wish me luck. I should probably try to catch the little guy, patch the hole in my hang-in container and force him to stop flirting with disaster, but I'm think I'm going to go ahead and take the gamble.

[DrHank]

Mike, good luck. I hope that everything works out OK. It sounds like you have about the same kind of luck that I do when making things for the auqarium. I made a fish trap and got one on my damsels out of my tank. Empty plastic grapefruit juice bottle with an egg crate door. Worked for one of the striped damsels. The other one won't go in it and the blue devil can swim through the grate (as I found out when I almost caught him). Well, hope all goes well with your clowns!!

[SueQ]

Good luck Mike! Maybe tonight you'll come home and find them spooning;D

[IslandCrow]

Man, I'm depressed. The two clowns weren't exactly spooning when I got back. After a 15 minute search for the little guy, I finally saw some hermit crabs and my starfish going to work on something under a rock. I'm sure I don't have to give you two guesses as to what that is. So, it's official. I'm out of the matchmaking business. I was really hopeful about this one too. Ahh well. . .

On a positive note, my two blennies who are not supposed to get along seem to be best buddies. I was originally going to try to sell the incorrect one I got from Marine Depot to Dave at Aquaria, but just for kicks, I decided to try putting them both together in my QT to see what would happen. I figured if they started fighting it would be easy enough to separate them. Well, for the most part, they just ignored each other, and even now spend a good deal of time swimming right by each other with not so much as a dirty glance. So, there's a little silver lining. And with that, I'm going to consider my tank fully stocked with fish at one maroon clown, 1 six-line, and two blennies. That's about all I ever planned on getting anyway, so back to corals. I think I still have a few square inches of rock space left.

[Mr James]

Maybe instead of getting a smaller clown, you go fir a bigger one. I also hear that larger clownfish, bullies at that, get along well with striped grouper!! Ha ha ha.... Do you want the one I have back?? I'll even thrown in a GBTA. I'd be irked if that was my fish. Killing is against the law in my tank.

[DrHank]

Sorry to hear about the clown. I didn't know that you were trying to pair yours up. Unfortunately, that usually doesn't work (as you found out the hard way). That is why buying a mated pair is so much more expensive than just buying two clowns. I agree with you, your tank does look fully stocked (and very nice) I think that you should be happy with what you have. The only other alternative I see is a bigger tank.

[IslandCrow]

Yeah, Doc, I knew there was certainly no guarantee of success. Things didn't exactly go according to plan, but I actually did quite a bit of reading before I even attempted it. If I had to do it all again, I certainly would have just gotten a mated pair. As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, that was the original plan. Unfortunately, I took some bad advice and tried to put two similar sized juveniles together. Fortunately, I finally decided to separate them and bring the bigger one back. The smaller one healed up quite nicely afterwards and is the one I have now. So, this is the less aggressive one. . .scarry thought.