Hi Nikki
Mike has the Gold-stripe Maroons (
Premnas biaculeatus ). What happened was he saw a couple clusters of eggs, of orangish, rusty coloration nearby his rose anemones on the rocks. It was not one larger cluster, but a couple.
Mike's question as to how many eggs to clownfish lay at one time is dependant on the type of clownfish species. Larger species, will lay more eggs, that has been a proven fact (i.e. GSMs, White stripe maroons, Clarkiis, and 'most' Tomato clowns). Now, in addition to that, there are other factors. Food and nutrition is one of them and water quality (including temperature). In Mike's situation, this is probably what happened--the female cleans the nest site along with the male, resulting in visible cuts and bruises to the female's lip and mouth area. The male does not clean as hard, in my opinion and I have observed that my pair does not get these bruises. So the female lays eggs in Mike's tank, and the male fertilizes them. Ok so say about 6-7 days go by. So the eggs have developed, etc...and you can see the eyes and the tail developing within the eggs. Ideally, the eggs hatch anywhere between 6-9 days, and this is temperature dependant. What happens in between this duration is that new eggs are developing inside the female's body, sometimes faster. Now if the temperature is rather on the low side (by that I mean ~78 degrees, which is very very low for clownfish), the eggs will probably hatch in Day 9 or even 10. At the same time, Mike's female clown could not wait that long to lay another set of eggs. So off she goes, cleaning another site with the male, and lays another slightly 'smaller' cluster this time.
One way you can tell if this is exactly the case is to see if the eggs are much more developed in one of the egg clusters, as compared to the other. I have not witnessed a scenario where a female gold-stripe maroon lays her eggs in one place, then switches location on the 'same' egg-laying day. GSM clowns are known for being the best parents out of all the clowns. They clean their site well, they fan their eggs constantly and consistently, and sleep by their eggs at night. Snails or anything that comes nearby is given a full charge by either/both parents. I doubt that they will move sites because of those reasons, although there is always a first.
I hope that clarified some things. These are just what i'm observing, and not necessarily 'text-book' stuff, so please do not take it like the 'clown-bible'.
Thanks,
Ilham