clown fish

[Aanjelspell]

I have 2 tank raised clowns in my tank that I've had for almost 2 years now. Ususally, the 2 clowns are together, but lately, the smaller one stays in the corner and the larger one has carved this dip in the substrate at the front of the tank. she swims there vertically. if one of the other fish or me comes near the area she swims around rapidly and the other fish usually comes over for a while. They both go to the corner at night when all the lights are out. Can anyone tell me what is going on?

[EdgeKrusher]

They are about to spawn or are spawning. The female will dig a hole in the substrate trying to find a hard surface to lay her eggs on and like all males, we try to stay out of the females way when it's around that time. LOL j/k. One suggestion is that you put a hard surface on the substrate, i.e. a peice of clay pot on the substrate so she can lay her eggs there. She is just protecting her eggs like any good mother. She may have already laid them so I would just wait to see if the fry hatch. If so you'll want to get them out of there otherwise they'll become a nice snack. I'm not sure how you would go about raising fry for clown fish, so you might want to look into that. HTH

Peace

EK

[Aanjelspell]

can you tell me what the eggs would look like? I've looked, but I have such a problem with theis green carpetlike algae that I can't tell if there's anything there or not. Can I clean everywhere else but where she's at? would that be ok?

[EdgeKrusher]

I'm not sure what they look like, you should see a small batch of them though, the female will make sure to keep that area clean.

[EdgeKrusher]

This might help.

Spawning starts when the female swims over the cleared patch of rock and deposits a small line of eggs with her ovopositor. The males follows shortly after and fertilizes them. The process of laying eggs takes anywhere from 2 to 3 hours. The eggs look like little capsules about 2 to 3 mm long and 1 mm wide. If the adults have been fed well the eggs should be a bright orange color. During this time the clownfish, notably Amphiprion clarkii, may lay up to 600 eggs. More often than not however, the number of eggs start out small, around 200, and increases with each spawn and as the female increases in size. Once the fish have started spawning they're likely to repeat it at intervals of around 12 to 18 days.

[Aanjelspell]

thanks so much for the info

Aanjelspell