Might be a dumb question....
 

I was asked a question about fish breeding which I couldn't answer this morning. It may be a moot question but I'd rather give a proper answer than an educated guess.

Is it possible for 2 separate fish species to breed in the home aquarium? IE. Chromis and dottyback, Clown and Chromis and so on.

Yes it is. Next to impossible for any babies to survive in a reef tank though.

I don't know, but a half chromi, half clown would look awesome...

They would have to at least be members of the same species to come close , dogs and cats are both mamals but there is no dog/cat hybrid , but a dog can breed with a wolf .There are lots of tang hybrids and some angels too that can produce a hybrid .

There have been lots of hybrid fish but only within the same genus. ie Dwarf angel with Dwarf angel and also some tangs. Scopas with Yellow and Powder Grey with Achilles.

The last few levels of classifications of living things are:
Family
Genus
Species

I have been following hybrid fish for a long time now. From what I read, only fish that are in the same genus have a possibility of hybridizing.
For example, lemonpeel angelfish, it is in:
Family: Pomacanthidae
Genus: Centropyge
Species: flavissima
It can hybrid with a a few of species under the same Genus, like C. eibli and C. vrolikii.

Both flame angelfish and emporor angelfish are in the same family, Pomacanthidae, but they are not hybridizing.
HTH

If not mistaken, both clownfish & chromis are 'damsel fish' (species?), so maybe not that far fetched. Generally they don't really get along in a tank & keep their distance if they don't actually kill one another. So yeah, unlikely I reckon. Nevertheless, nature & natural selection have a way of defying logic sometimes, that's how 'diversity' happens?