Can u "Force pair" Centropyge?

[Covey]

I love pygmy angels and would adleast like to have a pair of them. LFS wisdom on adding more than one Coral Beauty to a tank is that it would be open war far. I have read and seen that people have mated pairs. I was wondering if I could make a pair by buying a new smaller Coral Beauty and setting it up behind a barrier in the tank. From what I have they can and do switch sexes to suit the situation. I could intoduce them after they had a change to size each other up. Hopefully lessing the aggresion towards the new fish.
Would this work or does anyone esle have anyother ideas?

[Luis A M]

Sounds like a plan.Be sure to have lots of rockwork:D

[David M]

I have formed several pairs & trios of flame angels but I cheat, I do it the fast and dirty way :cool: I start with 5 fish, place them in a 60 gallon bb tank w/ lots of cover (rock, pvc, etc). Occasionally I have to remove one but not always, within a few weeks the social order developes and you can pick out a pair or trio. Meantime they are in isolation/ quarantine/ acclimation so at 4-6 weeks they are ready for sale or introduction to a display or breedng tank :D
I don't know if others would agree but IME you MUST start with an odd number (5 or 7). I have read this too. If you try it with 4 or 6 they will simply pair off/ square off and fight. Odd numbers mean there is always one "free" fish to interfere and distract any two that are squabbling. ;)

[Luis A M]

It might be true,I set a trio of eiblii,large,medium and small,and I soon had a spawning pair plus a small female receiving the frequent aggression of the other one.After some time the male died and almost immediately aggression between the females ceased,and I guess they´re in sex change mode.:p
On the other hand,I recently bought a large pair of lemonpeels which were together in a large lfs tank.In my (smaller)tank they get along so so,perhaps a smaller "third party" could improve the pair´s bond.

[David M]

In a month or two I'm going to change my 125 display reef, it's boring right now. Just a mix of common, unrelated fish all of which were given to me. I'm gonna make it a Caribbean reef right down to the snail & crab species. I plan to have a harem of cherubs in there, probably start with seven and see how it goes. And a nice queen for a feature fish. It will be interesting to see how the cherubs organize socially and if I get any spawning.

[Covey]

How hard is it to raise Centropyge fry?

[David M]

Very :D

[Greg Hiller]

My understanding is that all immature Centropyge are females. This means you can create a mated pair by simply putting together a small and a large fish. This is what I did for my coral beauties. The little one was chased a little bit at first, but that all stopped after a few days.