Onyx Clownfish (Amphiprion percula)

"Annie" & "Alvy"

Annie was purchased from a local breeder, Rod Buehler of Rod's Reef, in April 2007. We do not know her age at the time of purchase, however she is a second generation captive bred fish.

Alvy was also purchased from a local breeder, Matt Pedersen of MOFIB. Alvy was hatched on Sept 1, 2007 and is an F1 fish that we purchased in March 2008.

We had tried to pair Annie with two other onyx clowns, both of which had died (primarily due to our negligence). We were very saddened by our failures to keep the juvenile fish alive and vowed that the third attempt would be a success. Our only fear was whether Annie would accept a new juvenile into the tank. To minimize her perceived threat we purposely selected the least-developed juvenile Matt had in his tank. This strategy paid off, to our great relief. Upon introduction to the tank Alvy immediately swam up to Annie and started following her. After a few hours she stopped trying to chase him away, and they have been inseparable to this day.

It is now December 2008 and the fish have been exhibiting some mating rituals for the past three months. We were excited at first, but now realize they could take awhile to begin breeding! Alvy has quite a bit of maturing to go before he is ready, I think.


Annie & Alvy #2 (RIP) circa Feb 2008