What are my clowns doing? [Video]

[johnstires]

Last night I saw my clowns exhibiting strange behavior. I was out about 20 minutes past their bedtime and I was late to feeding them. When I got home I turned on my atinics so as not to shock them but to slowly wake them up. About a half hour after this, they started picking at the rock and rubbing themselves up against it.

Here's the video showing them do this while my goby watches on :),

http://www.onereef.com/index.php?page=clowns

Are they just cleaning a rock to spawn or are they actually trying to spawn?

[GSMguy]

? nothing there?

[spence0416]

To me it looks like they are clearing a spot for eggs.

[johnstires]

Does anyone know roughly how long it takes for them to spawn? I would assume that my female needs to get fat with eggs.

[CanesDave]

They look to be preparing a site for spawning. No spawning yet in that video. When they do spawn, the female will make very slow and deliberate passes over that spot to attach rows of eggs. The male will then follow to fertilize the eggs. As you said, the female will first get swollen with eggs and the day of the spawn you will see the ovipositor protruding from her.

[johnstires]

SO is there anything I can do to promote spawning? They seemed to start to clean the rock when I turned the blue light on after their usual bedtime. Otherwise they just go to sleep. I never see them doing that in the day time. The female may charge the may, who submits, but I never see them picking at that rock.