Well time for another update, sorry it has taken me so long.
Pair #1 had to be separated on their third or fourth clutch. The male continued to eat the eggs, which was aggrivating, but I was not to worried about it as that is not uncommon in new pairs. HOWEVER, I did notice that the male bulked up a ton, AND on the last batch he did not seem interested in fertilizing. I watched the pair closely for a few days as things started to go downhill. The "male" had decided he wanted to become a female. They locked jaws and it got prettttyyy nasty. So, I pulled that male (that had grown to 2", putting on nearly 3/4" since the started spawning) and replaced him with the male from pair # 3 (the one on the right side in the first picture of pair #3 at the top of this page) and placed the original male turned female with the other fish from pair # 3. The female took to the new male almost instantly, and in fact they seem to be a more cohesive pair. She resumed spawning 12 days later and her cycle has fluctuated between 9 and 10 days, much better than the 12-14 days with the original male. This leads me to believe they are much more compatible. OF course, the new male has been trying to get a hang of everything and has not been able to keep the first three clutches. However, they will spawn again in a few days and I am hopeful that they will get it right in the next 3-5 spawns.
Pair # 2 has been doing well after the battle with ich and the female has been putting a ton of weight on. She has darkened up a ton and her abdomen is squaring up a bit. The male has been cleaning the tile all day and they female digs in the sand non-stop which has made it some-what difficult to keep the anemones foot burried, but it does not seem to mind much as long as it still gets its dailyy dose of silversides lol. I am anticipating an intial spawn from them within the next few months based upon their behavior.
The new pair # 3 (dubbed Bob and Marley because they LOVE their pot, of course meaning their flower pot house
)consisting of the "old male" and its new mate have finally started settling in together and I am expecting a spawn from them withing the next 8 mos. Both of those fish are very high quality Grade A's that should produce some amazing offspring.
Colby
