Pairing Question

[hollback]

I have a very large (~3.5") completely black onyx female I've had in my in my display for a while and two black Darwin clowns (~3/4") currently residing in my frag tank. Since the two in my frag tank are from the same stock/breeder I figured it would be best to try to pair one up with my large clown to mix the gene pool. What is the best way to do this? Just pick one and add it to the display? Catch my large clown and add her to the frag tank with the others? Do I need to get rid of one of my tiny clowns or will all three theoretically live in harmony? Sorry don't know much about pairing does and don'ts.

Thanks!

 

[Ericm1205]

Rule of thumb is never add more than 2 clowns to a tank. if you add more, then usually the dominate fish will kill everyone till there is only 2.
since your onyx is a perc and your BW are occy you can mix them. what i would do is find another onyx or a picasso or other perc type and add it to the onyx. then you can keep your BW occy pair together. if you want to add the bw to your onyx you should make sure your adding the smaller of the two BW occy pair cause they are prolly doing their thing where they are deciding who is female and who is gonna be the male. if you add the female BW by accident, your onyx will surely kill her. so which of your BW is the male? easy, its the smaller one. males are the smaller of the 2. post a pic of for onyx, they are my fav

 

[Trex]

Have you noticed any dominance behavior b/t the 2 in the frag tank? If so, I would pick the less dominate one and pick that one to pair with your existing female. An acclimation box will come in very handy for this -- put the frag tank clown in the box for a couple of days to see how things turn out. What you do with the other frag tank clown is up to you, but it shouldn't be added with the other two.

 

[hollback]

Got it. Thanks for the helpful info. There is definately one smaller than the other with the two little ones so I will try to introduce that one to the onyx. Here is a really poor quality photo of her cleaning up detritus from her area.

 

[hollback]

So do i keep the two small Darwin clowns and get rid of my large female onyx or try to pair her with one of the small Darwins and get rid of the other Darwin?

 

[Trex]

Do you plan on raising the fry and selling them? If not, keep the 2 B&Ws if you like them better. Otherwise take the smallest B&W and pair it with the Onyx.

I have that combo (( albeit an SI Perc, wild caught )) in my 40 breeder -- did it after the female SI jumped.