OMG My fish are breeding

[Frogger]

Last night I was looking at my tank and all of a sudden out of the corner of my eye my my male ocellaris clown was swimming erratically carrying an Astrea snail by the foot almost as big as he was. He dropped it into the middle of one of my montipora's. I immediately thought this couldn't be, the fish couldn't be breeding. Sure enough there was a group of about 30 live eggs about ready to hatch. He was carrying the snail away from the eggs.

I know what everyone is saying nothing special my clowns lay eggs all the time.

Let me tell you why this is so special, at least for me.

In 1997 I purchased a large female Ocellaris clown fish from an over crowed 90 gallon hexagon tank in Richmond full of large angels. The fish was over 3" long. I brought her home and put her into my 240 gallon reef tank, mostly softies with a few LPS and clams. I purchased 2 small juvenile clowns to pair her up with. One of the two quickly grew larger and became a male. The other remained as a juvenile The 2 clowns started laying eggs almost immediately. They continued to lay eggs up until I moved to Burnaby in 2001.

During the move it took me a while to set my tank back up again and unfortunately the male died during this stressful time. The juvenile that I had purchased 4 years earlier quickly grew larger and assumed the role as male. They again began to lay eggs.

17 years later they have laid eggs again. I hadn't seen eggs for several years. I really hadn't looked that hard. The two would often act as if they were laying eggs and the male would fan a bare rock and go through the motions.

This female has been laying viable eggs for 20 years. I am sure she was at least 4 years old when I got her.

I wonder how long she will continue to lay eggs. She has outlived most of my other pets 2 fold.

There is not much information on the internet about how long they live and how long they can continue to lay eggs.