Questioning my clownfish's sexual maturity

C

crabbygabby

New member
I have a two Ocellaris clownfish that have been paired now since early October. The female is very large and about 8 years old. The male was a juvenile when I got him the first week of October and only about 1.25 inches now. The female has been showing pre-spawning behavior for a few days now; cleaning a spot and spending a lot of time with the male. She has been showing a lot of submissive twitching behavior as well. The male does not appear to be displaying this behavior nearly as much as the female. Anyways, I think I interrupted them yesterday afternoon to feed and they aborted, because both fish had their germ tubes out, but I have yet to see any eggs. Today the female is constantly approaching the male and twitching and swimming over to her spot, while he seems to be somewhat unresponsive and is not really twitching back or following her. I am beginning to wonder if the male is even sexually mature yet. do you think I can I assume that he is indeed sexually mature since I saw his germ tube yesterday? Perhaps he just ins't in the mood? Or is something else going on? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the help in advance!
Sincerely,
Gabby
 
I know females take about 2yrs for eggkaying maturity but i thought males were good to go. It might just not be a male yet . I bekieve the female will still lay eggs though they just wont be fertilized. Definitky no expert here maybe mitch can chime in or sonebidy ekse without going off topic
 
I have had a male occelaris fertilize the eggs as early as 1.5 years old. I had a similar situation. I had an older female and added a small occelaris that was around a year old at the time. About 6 months later they had their first batch of eggs.
 
Male clowns can fertilize a clutch as early as 8 months. She should lay pretty soon.my onyx female had that tube sticking out for many days prior to her first spawn. Good luck
 
have two clowns in my tank one is bigger and over 3 years old another is about 1 year waiting to see what happens. After about 2 weeks they seem to be very comfortable together and the 3yr old hosts on all the anemones in the tank now the smaller one is learning to do the same very cool stuff. Some one told me if the head turns dark its a female is that true?
 
no.never heard that one. the female will be more aggressive. she will charge at the male and the male has to submit to her by going on its side and twitching. or else he will get a beat down. she should also be claiming her territory by cleaning with her belly. signs of spawning is biting at a spot where she might lay her eggs. no visual signs other than they get huge (female)
 
I had introduced a few new coral frags a few days after this post and that drove my female quite a lot crazy! I think I might have glued a frag to the rock she was preparing to lay on or something because she went Godzilla and started ripping stuff down. She is still really full but hasn't descended her ovipositor for the past few days at least, probably because I have been in the tank a bunch trying to rebuild the damage she has reeked on her city. I think I scared her away for now. The other possibility is that they layed without me noticing and then either they or my pistol shrimp ate them... But I am thinking from the size of the female that this is not the case. It should happen any day now if she hasn't completely aborted!
 
Also, I second gg1111's commentary regarding sex determination; behavior really is the key here to discerning sex in clownfishes. Size is often a clue as well, especially when the fish are part of an established pair. The smaller one is almost invariably the male.
 
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