Lone clownfish - any way to predict time to female?

[Tired]

I just lost the female of my clownfish pair to velvet. The male is in copper and seems healthy, so I'm confident he'll live. Trying to figure out how long I have before he winds up as a female. He's about 1.25-1.5" long. Will he start shifting to female during the month the copper treatment will take? If not, how long do I likely have?

I know I could just get a bitty juvenile and put that in no problem, but I'd like to keep him as the male if I can, both for aesthetics (he's a storm, and I'd love to pair him with another standard black ocellaris) and because he has a gill deformity and swim bladder issue that I'm concerned might get worse if he grows several times larger as a female.

 

[JayM]

I'm not entirely sure that a lone clownfish will transition to female as there won't be anything to trigger the process.

 

[Tired]

I was under the impression that they transition to female if they aren't regularly 'bullied' by a dominant female. A clown kept alone for years will wind up female, no?

 

[ryanjohn1]

Good question.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I wonder how one would even know if it changed sex? We can only sex them now when they are together based on size, is it possible to sex them when they are alone?

 

[vetteguy53081]

I just lost the female of my clownfish pair to velvet. The male is in copper and seems healthy, so I'm confident he'll live. Trying to figure out how long I have before he winds up as a female. He's about 1.25-1.5" long. Will he start shifting to female during the month the copper treatment will take? If not, how long do I likely have?

I know I could just get a bitty juvenile and put that in no problem, but I'd like to keep him as the male if I can, both for aesthetics (he's a storm, and I'd love to pair him with another standard black ocellaris) and because he has a gill deformity and swim bladder issue that I'm concerned might get worse if he grows several times larger as a female.

Generally this happens when other clowns are present and to my knowledge no time frame. I entered a clutch of 14 and ended with 4 breeding Pair and it took a few months to happen

 

[Tired]

I wonder how one would even know if it changed sex? We can only sex them now when they are together based on size, is it possible to sex them when they are alone?

Well, if you put it with a known female and they kill each other, that would be very suggestive that it was a female. Unethical, but suggestive. Also, males do stay smaller, so a 3" lone clown would be a female unless it's absolutely ancient. Probably still if it's ancient.

I don't know that there's any non-invasive way to take a smallish clown and know for sure, in the absence of another clown, what sex it is. Unless showing it a video of a bigger clown might make it do the submission vibration. Maybe I'll test that with this guy.

 

[Katrina71]

I posed this question to a marine biologist that worked for a clown breeding facility near me, she said even solo they tend to be female.

 

[Tired]

I don't suppose anyone has an up-close video of a black ocellaris I can show this guy tomorrow to see if he has any opinions.

 

[Tired]

Showed him a video of a black ocellaris, and he looked interested, but he also looked interested in a video of some guppies. I don't think I can use this as a diagnostic test.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a good place to get healthy, non-inbred black ocellaris? Either a basic black, or one of the morphs with a lot of black- midnight lightning, domino, etc. I asked Biota, and they're mostly out of the morphs I'd wanted, or have them a bit too small to wind up the female when put with this guy. I'm now poking around looking for small breeders in hopes of dodging the inbreeding that turns up in some of the mass-produced designer strains.

Anyone have experience with Brian at Clownfish Depot? Looks good from what I can see of him on Facebook.

 

[Katrina71]

Showed him a video of a black ocellaris, and he looked interested, but he also looked interested in a video of some guppies. I don't think I can use this as a diagnostic test.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a good place to get healthy, non-inbred black ocellaris? Either a basic black, or one of the morphs with a lot of black- midnight lightning, domino, etc. I asked Biota, and they're mostly out of the morphs I'd wanted, or have them a bit too small to wind up the female when put with this guy. I'm now poking around looking for small breeders in hopes of dodging the inbreeding that turns up in some of the mass-produced designer strains.

Anyone have experience with Brian at Clownfish Depot? Looks good from what I can see of him on Facebook.

If you get tiny, yours will be the female. I mean baby sized.

 

[Katrina71]

Sustainable Aquatics

Sustainable Aquatics

sustainableaquatics.com

 

[Katrina71]

I have been there. You can find ANY clownfish there.

 

[Tired]

Right, I know I can get tiny to guarantee this will be the female. I'm wondering, how long will it be until this one has to be the female? I want to keep him male, if I can, but at some point that's no longer possible. I just don't know if "some point" is in a month, a year, or determined by size rather than time.

Sustainable Aquatics has a lovely selection, but they sell to retail outlets, not direct to people, and the retail outlets I can find online don't seem yet to have what I'm looking for in stock.

 

[jtf74]

I've read it can happen within a month of the female dying, but its not likely I would guess. I believe my lone maroon turned female after about 2-3 years when she went from dark orange to darker almost maroon black in a few weeks time and then started growing quicker. Not sure if being paired causes acceleration to change but as small as it is I would imagine you would have time to get through QT and a few months to get a female clown to replace the other.

 

[Tired]

Well, he's been pacing the glass nonstop at high speed ever since she died, chasing his reflection to the point where he's too busy to eat, so I'm going to go ahead and get him a lady. They can go through QT together- the meds in the water should stop them giving each other anything. Found a nice big gal at a LFS, hopefully they like each other.

 

[Tired]

They do! She doesn't like me, but I can work with that.

 

[littlefoxx]

Showed him a video of a black ocellaris, and he looked interested, but he also looked interested in a video of some guppies. I don't think I can use this as a diagnostic test.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a good place to get healthy, non-inbred black ocellaris? Either a basic black, or one of the morphs with a lot of black- midnight lightning, domino, etc. I asked Biota, and they're mostly out of the morphs I'd wanted, or have them a bit too small to wind up the female when put with this guy. I'm now poking around looking for small breeders in hopes of dodging the inbreeding that turns up in some of the mass-produced designer strains.

Anyone have experience with Brian at Clownfish Depot? Looks good from what I can see of him on Facebook.

Cultivated reef has black clowns. You can pick the size too maybe look at them!

 

[littlefoxx]

I found these at my LFS store. The male (the black ice) was in a tank all by himself for months. They got the black and white Darwin in one day as a large female. I took both of them and they paired no issues. The black ice had been alone for a long time (been in the store probably 6 months) before they got her in as a surrender and I got both and paired them. The black ice was still male based on how he did his little dance to her and they paired almost instantly.

 

[Tired]

Nice pair! Funky-looking male you got there.

Cultivated Reef does have some nice-looking sale entries, but I'd tripped over some mentions of Sea and Reef (which is where their clowns are from) not being good at culling, and my male had gotten to a point where he was exhausting himself with pacing and wasn't eating. I didn't want to wait until Tuesday (since- Monday shipping, Tuesday arrival) to get him a female to calm him down. Poor guy's never been alone until now.

Wound up getting him a lady from my LFS. She's not my favorite match aesthetically- she's orange-tinged black instead of pure black, with that intense orange face, and I'd prefer a pure black-and-white for this guy. She'd look best with an orange male, I think. But- I needed a lady fast, and the face is really charming.

Her name is Pumpkin. He went to her the instant she hit the water, and they seem paired already.