Article: Breeding fish is a project that should be taken on by people who are experienced with saltwater aquarium set up and maintenance. While breeding these fish is not difficult, it does require a bit of knowledge about fish feeding and life cycles, not to mention having the right supplies to assure proper tank filtration and ecosystem development. If you want to begin setting up your own aquarium, you may want to consult How to Start a Saltwater Aquarium or How to Set up a Marine Reef Aquarium before diving into breeding fish. Clownfish are external breeders, meaning that the female fish lays eggs and then the male fish fertilizes them after they have been laid. To make this happen you will need to get a pair of clownfish that are already bonded, in other words mated to each other. Many aquarium stores will sell mated pairs specifically for clownfish breeding. If your store does not have any in stock, they can probably special order a pair just for you. Don't be afraid to ask! The other way you can get a mated pair is to develop two young clownfish into a bonded pair yourself. Begin by buying two clownfish when they are still young. One of the amazing things about clownfish is that they are all born neither male or female, so you don't have to worry about getting one male and one female. Any pair will do. Developing into a male or female fish only occurs as the fish get older. The sex of your fish will actually be determined by the dominance of the fish when fighting each other. The dominant fish will change sex into a female and the less dominant will become male. If you are keeping a lot of clownfish in the same tank, only one bonded pair will develop. The most dominant of all will become female and the second most dominant will become male. The rest will remain sexless. If you want to keep the fighting to a minimum and make the fish change sex as quickly as possible, it is a good idea to get one clownfish that is larger than the other, that way it is clear from the get go which one is dominant. Clownfish are not as sensitive to water conditions as other fish can be, but keeping the water clean can make them more likely to breed. Placing anemone in the tank to make the clownfish feel more comfortable. Although this is not totally necessary, it will increase the likelihood that your pair will breed. You should also have live rock in your tank. Live rock is rock that is from the ocean and is the foundation of the development of coral reefs. The live rock will provide the fish have hiding places and will give a surface on which the clownfish can lay and care for their eggs. Keep it light during the day and dark at night on a regular schedule. This regularity will keep your clownfish more relaxed, and thus more likely to spawn. The female, the bigger of your two fish, will get thicker around her middle, indicating she is getting ready to release eggs. Both fish may also start to clean the rocks with their mouth and fins to get it ready for the eggs. Once the eggs are laid they will be orange in color and attached to the rocks. The male clownfish will care for them, swimming around them and waving his fins on them to aerate them. He may also pick off the ones that have died. Clownfish eggs go through multiple stages of development. As stated before, they begin as an orange color but shift The eggs should hatch in about 7 to 10 days. You will need to feed the fry live rotifers for the first week. Rotifers are plankton that many species feed on. After that, you can start to introduce live brine shrimp. Clownfish babies will only eat live food. It does not need to be very big, a 10 gallon (37.8 l) tank will do fine for the hatchlings. Make sure the tank does not have a large filtration system but instead has an air stone that lets off little bubbles or some other more gentle means of oxygenation. Too much filtration could easily kill all your tiny fry. You must also provide proper lighting for the fry since they will be searching for food but their vision is not the greatest. The light shouldn't be too bright, one light bulb is sufficient, and should be as diffused as possible.

What is a summary?
Make sure you are very familiar with the basics of keeping a saltwater aquarium. Get a mated pair from an aquarium store. Develop a mated pair. Keep the water in your tank clean. Place plants and rocks in your aquarium. Keep your aquarium lighting on a timer. Recognize the changes in clownfish behavior that signal spawning. Keep a look out for the clownfish eggs. Track changes in the clownfish eggs. Set up a separate hatchling tank once the eggs are laid.