My clowns hate each other, now they're breeding??

Hi everyone, I've been absent for a while, consumed with life, [insert excuse here], etc. Regardless, I'm back with a couple questions.

Here's what's going on... I have a 75gal that has two clowns, and some other fish. The female clown is a clarkii, the male is a maroon. (I know I shouldn't have two different species in the tank but because I condense two tanks it ended up this way). The female has her anemone and tries to rule the whole tank while the male claims the back corner of the other end of the tank. The female is wild caught and the male is tank bred and has never showed intrest in an anemone, not to mention he fact he won't come within about three feet of the females seabe.

Last nigt during the superbowl the female laid eggs, after a few hours of acting neurotic. The eggs are yellowish with an orange tint. She is constantly fanning them and defending them.

I'm confused about what's going on. I've read that they won't lay eggs unless they're mated and then the male is the one who will protect them. I've never seen he male even consider going to that side of the the tank, nor has he done any of the mating dance wiggling thing like he used to with his maroon woman who died.

Is this normal? Do they only lay eggs if they're mated? What do you guys think?

 

they can change sex

 

I know they can change sex, but I can't imagine my female just changing to male overnight to fertilize, then switch back to female again...

 

sounds very weird. i have no idea. the females lay eggs and the males fertilize them. maybe she is just laying and there is no clarki male to fertilize them so they go bad.

 

My understanding is that the different species of clowns won't inter-breed.

 

At any rate, let us know what happens. Closure is nice.

 

Once a clown turns female, they don't go back (I guess there is a .000001% chance they could). And even if she did turn, it takes much, much longer than 24 hours. On average its about 60 days - I think the fastest is around 35-40. Check out Wilkerson's book on Clownfish, she talks about it.

Fish can lay eggs by themselves, but usually they get re-absorbed back into the body. Could have been the change (You mentioned you moved somethings around) that triggered it.

Chances are if you've had that maroon by itself, its a female as well.

Take lots of pics if they do hatch

 

oh this is some good internet stuff right here! hahaha

 

well the reason the female is so mean is because its a clarkii i worked at pet store for almost a yea and the clarkiis are tlike the triggers of the clown world. the maroon are a little shy to begin with. with the breeding not sure never got any to breed yet. but keep us updated

 

Well the eggs were gone the next day. They probably became food for someone. I've read that the clowns rarely go back to being male after being female and I've also read that it's not so rare. As far as the part about me moving the rock around, well I did that because I thought she was mad at the rocks position because the anemone was kind of tucked behind it, turns out her attacks at the rock were the behaviors that are displayed before laying the eggs. When I moved the rock back to where it was the eggs were laid almost immediately.

Oh well. I'll be posting on this thread again if we have any more egg laying action