The Lightning Maroon Clownfish spawn is a milestone which probably comes as a sigh of relief to its caretaker, Matt Pedersen. For over two years Matt has kept the second lightning maroon clownfish and tried to pair it with a variety of other maroon clownfish; first as a male where it got it’s butt kicked on several occasions by larger females, and as the fish grew it switched sex to a female and has paired with a smaller maroon clownfish. This morning Matt reported that the first spawn had finally been laid.

Only two weeks ago Matt wrote about the use of “doubling down“, a technique to introduce the clutch of another clownfish species as a potential stimulant to spawning. Then last week the Lightning Maroon came down with a little mouth fungus and it stopped eating. Despite the little mishap, the doubling down seems to have worked and the potential first generation of lightning maroon clownfish is on its way. The first spawn of any clownfish is notoriously low in fertility and fecundity and we have low expectations for this first spawn but with practice, good care and more conditioning, subsequent spawns should be larger and produce even more robust offspring in the future.

It hasn’t been easy to keep, condition and spawn the Lightning Maroon Clownfish but now that the first spawn is under his belt, Matt can really start having fun with hopefully building a stable of lightning maroon clownfish. Congratulations Matt, here’s to many more successful spawns and hopefully some lightning strikes in the offspring.