Pairing up different morphs

Crabs McJones · Jan 31, 2020

Does anyone have any insight when it comes to pairing up clowns of different morphs? Does it just happen like if they were the same? Or does something need to be done to help pair them up? I ask because I have a regular O. Clown fish and a frostbite clownfish and they seem to want nothing to do with eachother. I was hoping theyd pair up but they stay on their opposite sides of the tank. Before these two I had a pair of O. Clowns that paired up almost instantly.
Thanks for any advice :)

fishguy242 · Jan 31, 2020

hi you can put them in some sort of containment box together,with egg crate divider between them ,let them get to know each other tighter quarters,about a week ,remove the divider make sure they do not fight,then release ,imo works most of the time,

Peace River · Jan 31, 2020

Clowns generally seem to be more attracted to fish that look like themselves, but clownfish are weird. Physically, an ocellaris should pair and mate with any other ocellaris, however the specifics of any two fish are never guaranteed. Recently I had a little Tomato clown that kept figuring out how to get through the divider to be with a large single Clarkii until I moved the Tomato pair. Now the Tomatoes are paired up nicely and I have introduced a small Clarkii to the large Clarkii and currently they are coexisting but not paired. Keep trying and one thing that you could try is to move them to a smaller tank (or section within the tank). Good luck!

D-Nak · Feb 1, 2020

Peace River said:
Clowns generally seem to be more attracted to fish that look like themselves

How does a clownfish know what it looks like? I just thought that was funny. :p

Peace River · Feb 1, 2020

D-Nak said:
How does a clownfish know what it looks like? I just thought that was funny. :p

Great question and I don't know, but having breed many species of fish I have seen this on my occasions. I don't remember a source specifically for clowns (other than my anecdotal experience), but I do know that with African killifish where the females all look the same, research has been done showing that when you put a mixed species group of females in a tank and then introduce a mixed species group of males then they will pair off with their own species and if their species wasn't present then they would pair off with a male that looks most like their own species. I didn't look up exact sources, but at least one of the research articles was published in Journal of the American Killifish Association (JAKA).