[patsfan1130]

Hey everyone!

I have been diligently trying to pair My female GSM with another and thought I would post my experiences thus far. I have done a ton of reading on the subject (it can be very difficuly to successfully pair maroons) and after reading practically everything ever written on the subject (a little sarcasm) I felt I was ready to give it a try. But first a little background.

My current GSM is approx 3.5'' long and been in my 120 reef tank for 6 months. She has been happily hosting a RBTA for around 3 months. She is not too agressive as she will let MOST neighbors in "her" area most of the time and gets along very well with everyone.

I was very picky when choosing the potential mate. I had made up my mind that I would not purchase anything larger than 1.5''. I work P/T at my LFS so I was able to order one to my specifications (1''). He arrived approx 1 month ago and I Q/T'd him in my 10 gallon. The day I brought him home I placed one of those clown veggie clips in the tank on the glass right near the RBTA. My female was clearly irritated by this but after a few hours..she calmed down and all was normal.

After four weeks of Q/T I took a large specimen container and drilled a bunch of 1/4'' holes in it as it would be my little guys home for an unknown period of time. I drip acclimated him to my display water and placed him in the specimen container,removed the veggie clip and cut a piece of acrylic to fit over the top of the container and placed it at the bottom of my tank right next to her "real estate" and then placed a coffee cup on top of the acrylic cover.

At this point my only plan was to observe and cross my fingers. My female immediately started to breath VERY heavily and started to try to bite the little guy through the plastic. She was extremely p****d off that he was in HER tank and would have ripped him to shreds had it not been for the container. THis behavior continued for around 2 hours. A good sign was that the male immediately went into a submissive posture (he would turn sideways as she charged him and would violently shake). Anyways..she was still clearly upset over his existance but would only investigate every 20 minutes or so..give a little nip on the plastic and swim away.

I left him in the container for another 72 hours (feeding garlic soaked frozen formula one) and her bahavior was unchanged (irritated but tolerant of him)

On day 5 I decided it was time to release him and pray. I removed the piece of acrylic but left the specimen container where it was as it was my hope that he would retreat back to it if things got out of hand. He exited his prison immediately..swam up to her and gave a little shake (this is a good sign) but she wouldnt have anything to do with him and proceeded to chase him around for the next 45 minutes giving him a pretty good thumping (fins were torn up pretty good). I coraled him into the specimen container and placed the top back on and turned the lights out (this was very disheartening to me as I believed it was not going to work but I am a very stubborn person and was not about to give up)

My plan was to leave him in the container until I felt he was healed up enough to try it again. I was very pleased that he continued to eat (garlic soaked formula one)and never showed any signs of croaking.

This morning was day 4 of being back in his prison and I had no intentions of letting him out today but when I placed my fingers in the specimen containerto drop in some food he swam out and would not allow me to put him back in. So at this point I decided to leave the box open enough for him to swim back in but small enough for her fit through. Well..sure enough she went right after him but he ducked back into the container for safety. I was very worried about this but decided to leave things as is and went to work.

I returned tonight with a lump in my throat expecting the worse (overturned specimen container and a dead male clown) but that was not the case. He was in fact still very much alive..out of the container (hovering in it's immediate vicinity) and not beaten any more than he already was.

My female would charge him but stop just short of him and he would in turn..turn sideways and give a shake. This behavior continued for about an hour and then things changed a bit. She would charge him..he would violently shake..she would turn her back to him and then he would gently kiss her cheek and she would NOT beat the hell out of him!! (these are VERY good signs)

Well..as we speak she is more or less ignoring him..he is still holding on to his security container and she is protecting her RBTA but she will charge over every so often and they will both "do their little dance" and she swims away.

I am not out of the woods yet but things are looking very good and wanted to share this with everyone. Hopefully it helps someone who might be interested in pairing maroons someday.

I will be posting pics as soon as I can find the cable to my camera.

Thanks for reading

Mark

[Reefland]

That is a very cool write-up of your experience so far, I personally will be looking forward to many more updates!

[Samper]

I agree with reefland, very nice write up, When I first got into this hobby I had witnessed the shaking behavior with true perculas, very interesting to watch. I know the maroons are much more aggressive and much harder to pair so I wish you the best of luck. Keep us updated please.

[Sueet]

Boy, I guess I just plain got lucky when my female claimed the male immediately... I sure am glad I didn't have to go thru all that.. but thanks for the info, I'm certain it will help someone somewhere..... maybe even me someday

[farewellnite]

good job man, i tried forever with no success

[lovesalt]

Wow, sounds like you and the clowns are on the way to happiness!! My GSM's paired up right away. I had the female first and a couple days later got a male. I had to take the first one back as it was the same size as the female and it did not work. Smaller fish and now they are as happy as they can be!! The female is pretty obnoxious though!!!


Good luck can't wait to see the pics!