A very sick clown fish saved...tell me if I am wrong...

[LisaM]

I had the pair of false percs about 2 months when the female began to look like something was wrong...marine velvet, I think. She had a fine white powder on her body. I noticed something for a couple of days, but I let it go. I came home from work and she was gasping on the bottom and had rubbed her tail off completely. Bloody stump would be an accurate description. I thought I should flush her, but my hubby (non-reef adict) said that there was no way he was flushing a $30 fish without trying to save it first. I netted the fish out---she was only laying on the bottom anyway.

 

I didn't have a quarantine or hospital tank at that time so I grabbed a fish bowl and filled it up with tap water. I dropped her in. The temp of the tap, and the temp of the tank was way off so I thought she would die for sure, not even counting the shock of the freshwater dip. She didn't move much in the fresh water but you could just tell she was stressed badly. After a couple of minutes I pulled her out and filled the fish bowl with some saltwater, threw and airstone in and we ran to Walmart. I picked up a 2gal minibow and rushed home. I mixed salt and fresh and came up with .011 reading on the hydrometer and dumped her in the minibow straight out of the box. I put an airstone in and a plastic rock from my freshwater tank and dosed the minibow with melafix. When I went to bed she was on the bottom and I figured she would be dead by morning.

 

In the morning I was surprised to see that she was swimming around. Go figure. Because there was no bacteria in the brand new tank I had to change 1 gallon daily so that it didn't have amonia. I kept on with the melafix and I did my daily water changes and the fish improved every day. Her tail was still a bloody stump but the powder on her body was gone. Every day she got better and better until the whole tail grew back over a two month peroid. I gradually raised the salinity in the 2gal until it matched my tank and then I reintroduced her to the tank. She quickly became the male. Her mate was healthy and he had grown so he became the chick. Now he is a she but 10 months later he is perfectly healthy and has a great little tail.

 

After all this what I am trying to say is, you just never know! The picture below is after the bloody stump but before the tail grew back.

 

[Opcn]

Great story, glad it worked out for you, But just FYI Female clowns can't become males.

[StephG]

Wow! Tuff little fish aren't they

[proraptor]

Awesome story....What a tear jerker

[LisaM]

Actually, I read in Coral magazine (latest issue) that females can indeed become males...they can totally switch roles and breed that way.

 

Lisa

[reef n ale]

What a great story! Nice work Lisa!

 

Rob

[Six]

Coral mag said that? what species did they say did that? interesting. i bet , if that is true, it was maroons as they are a totally different genera of clown, Premnas not Amphiprion. or else we've got another genera of clowns that is yet undescribed, or described correctly.

 

 

though, honestly, i jumped off the coral magazine bandwagon on issue, uh, 5 i think. they recommended an anemone for every clownfish under the title "How to keep Nemo" or something to that effect. Lost faith in Knop's editing ever since.

[LisaM]

I can tell you how the sex change happened with my False Percs. I bought a mated pair and the male was significantly smaller than the female. He acted submissive and did the cute little twitching dance to her all the time. When she got sick I removed her for around two months. In the absence of the female the male grew larger and more dominate and became a female. So I had two females. When I reintroduced the sick female the fought a lot, but because of the illness she was smaller. After a few weeks she was doing the mating dance and playing the part of the submissive. So, I believe that under the right circumstances it can and does happen. So, the former male can lay eggs and the former female fertilizes them. It definitley happend...

 

 

Here is a picture of the pair. The male (the one that was sick) is on top in the photo.

Lisa

[Six]

so you've seen them breed too?

 

sounds like an interesting possibility, though it sounds like the eception and not the rule. i doubt that it would ever happen in the wild. maybe ask Anthony Calfo at RC what he thinks. id like to know.

 

if you seriously think this happened, you really should post anywhere and to anyone what you found. maybe others will come forward and agree.

 

good luck.

[LisaM]

so you've seen them breed too?

 

sounds like an interesting possibility, though it sounds like the eception and not the rule. i doubt that it would ever happen in the wild. maybe ask Anthony Calfo at RC what he thinks. id like to know.

 

if you seriously think this happened, you really should post anywhere and to anyone what you found. maybe others will come forward and agree.

 

good luck.

 

Actually, you are the very first person that I have heard say that they can't go from female to male...it may be worth more research. I always thought that they could so I didn't think it was any big deal. I will check into it.

 

 

Lisa

[LisaM]

Actually, you are the very first person that I have heard say that they can't go from female to male...it may be worth more research. I always thought that they could so I didn't think it was any big deal. I will check into it.

Lisa

 

I did some more reading and found that the reason it probably happened was because both were juveniles (less than an inch long) and hadn't yet gone through their changes completely, even though the fish store called them a mated pair. Still very confusing, and I need to find my Coral magazine and the article on the reverse sex changes. It only happened to the author once and he was unable to reproduce it.

 

Interesting...

 

Lisa

[Six]

I did some more reading and found that the reason it probably happened was because both were juveniles (less than an inch long) and hadn't yet gone through their changes completely, even though the fish store called them a mated pair. Still very confusing, and I need to find my Coral magazine and the article on the reverse sex changes. It only happened to the author once and he was unable to reproduce it.

 

Interesting...

 

Lisa

 

Yea, I thought about them both being juveniles after I posted last time. I jumped to the conclusion that the person who said they were a mated pair meant just that. With clowns, they will become a pair, maybe thats what they meant.

 

I posted on RC in Calfo's forum to see what he says. I dunno if he's in town to check his forum though. We'll see.

 

...I would imagine if that tye of reveral sex change was such a common occurance, there would have been more accounts of it happening.

 

Actually, if you were to keep a bunch of juvenile clowns in the same tank, they will fight amongst themselves for dominence for, well, a really long time. the more clowns per tank, the longer it will take a pair to form since there's so many vying for position. thats why it's not really a good idea to have a tank of clowns. just a side note as i think...

 

good luck

[LisaM]

Yea, I thought about them both being juveniles after I posted last time. I jumped to the conclusion that the person who said they were a mated pair meant just that. With clowns, they will become a pair, maybe thats what they meant.

 

I posted on RC in Calfo's forum to see what he says. I dunno if he's in town to check his forum though. We'll see.

 

...I would imagine if that tye of reveral sex change was such a common occurance, there would have been more accounts of it happening.

 

Actually, if you were to keep a bunch of juvenile clowns in the same tank, they will fight amongst themselves for dominence for, well, a really long time. the more clowns per tank, the longer it will take a pair to form since there's so many vying for position. thats why it's not really a good idea to have a tank of clowns. just a side note as i think...

 

good luck

 

Six,

 

The more I think about it I know that the female used to be a male and she was definitely a boy. I just can't shake the fact that "She" now does all the male posturing and boy stuff and "he" is definitely a large aggressive chick. He did all the twitching and dancing that the males did before he became a girl. I know it sounds hard to believe. I also did find the article to back up the fact that this is possible. It is in Coral Magazine October/November 2005 titled Anemonefishes--Nice Guys with a Bite written by Professor Ellen Thaler.

 

On page 32 in a subsection titled Who's Who she tells a similar tale of removing the male and it turning female and getting bigger that the other female. When they were reintroduced they switched roles and spawned. I will note that it was a different type but still an Amphiprion.

 

Quote from article on page 33

 

" The (former) male continued to zigzag back and forth, while the female, in a completely frayed state, didn't dare move. In the end, she was wedged between two stones and hid in a Caulerpa stand for three days. When she reemerged, she was transformed. She trembled and slid jerkingly on her stomach over the sand. She was the image of a submissive, sweet and docile female -- or was she? Not in Amphiprion: "She" was the male!

Two weeks later, "she" was a fully functional male and "he" was a female ready to spawn! They started spawining in their reversed roles a few days later. And, most interestingly, since then, they have gotten along much better than ever before. It is hard to make rhyme or reason of this. Such a circumstance would never occur in the wild."

 

................

 

Page 33 column 2

 

"Years later, I was discussing this unexpected gender change with a few colleagues, and the recurring question was whether this experiment could be repeated. I have indeed succeeded in replicating this process, but only in Amphiprion clarkii. "

[Six]

that's pretty cool. Thanks for the quote. I might pick up a back issue of that just to read it all, sounds interesting.

 

clarkii's huh? i guess that makes sense since male and females are closer in size to eachother than just about any other clownfish species. that fact also makes it hard to tell which fish is which.... makes me still kinda wonder if the person watching the fish accidently mis IDd her female and male. you never know.

 

interesting possibility regardless.

[LisaM]

that's pretty cool. Thanks for the quote. I might pick up a back issue of that just to read it all, sounds interesting.

 

clarkii's huh? i guess that makes sense since male and females are closer in size to eachother than just about any other clownfish species. that fact also makes it hard to tell which fish is which.... makes me still kinda wonder if the person watching the fish accidently mis IDd her female and male. you never know.

 

interesting possibility regardless.

 

Well, in her defense I will submit that she is a proffesor in Marine Biology.