Reintroducing Clowns

[colinlevy]

My 2 ocellaris clowns have been together in my 25g for about 3-4 months now. They have appeared to be happy since day 1. They both host the same anemone and sleep in it together and don't leave each others side. They went through what I thought was a quick dominance phase for about a day when i first introduced them. But the smaller one did the whole shake thing and looks like it gave up. 

 

Anyways, fast forward to today. I am out of town on a work trip and my better half watched the two clowns for about an hour straight fighting eachother, pretty much just locking mouths the entire time (sent me a few videos), something I've never seen them do. She decided to take it upon herself to take the one getting beat up out of the tank and put it in one of my empty tanks.

 

Now my question, once I get home and access the situation, is it safe to reintroduce them again, and just keep any eye on them? I am sure they will go at each other again, but maybe they will work it out. I didn't see any fin damage, just looked like they were buying eachother mouths.

 

I have no idea what could of caused the sudden fight. The smaller one has grown quite a bit and maybe wants to take dominance all a sudden, I don't know. 

 

Just thought I would reach out. 

[Clown79]

Were the clowns of similar size by chance? Fairly large?

 

Possibly 2 females?

[colinlevy]

They are about the same size now. Initially 4 months ago when introduced, one was average (same size it is now) and one was pretty small. The smaller one seems to have caught up in size.

 

That could of been it? 

[burtbollinger]

IME, removing was an unnatural overreaction and complicates re-introduction.  Once left alone, I've had a solitary clown get very mean and stay that way to any one else. 

 

I ended up having to remove her and start with an entirely new pair.

[colinlevy]

4 minutes ago, burtbollinger said:

IME, removing was an unnatural overreaction and complicates re-introduction.  Once left alone, I've had a solitary clown get very mean and stay that way to any one else. 

 

I ended up having to remove her and start with an entirely new pair.

 

Yeah, unfortunately a overreaction, and nothing I could of done about it while away.

 

I attempted a re-introduction today using a couple different ideas/tops from my LFS, but they were very aggressive with each other, and this lasted all morning and into the afternoon.  

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, burtbollinger said:

IME, removing was an unnatural overreaction and complicates re-introduction.  Once left alone, I've had a solitary clown get very mean and stay that way to any one else. 

 

I ended up having to remove her and start with an entirely new pair.

Lol. I had the opposite. I removed the one and replaced it 7 months later. The new one with the loner bonded immediately.

 

There is bullying which is normal, that's the females roll but when aggression gets to the point where one is getting hurt or constant fighting/lip locking, thats often where one needs to make a decision on wait and see with a possibly bad outcome or removal of the more aggressive clown.

 

If it's 2 females, they will never get long.

[StephDaReefer]

Were they alone in a tank at the LFS? A small clown may still turn out to be a female if they were alone in a tank in a matter of a couple of weeks since there’s no other fish establishing dominance they’re free to change sex. If this is the case you might’ve ended up with 2 females which will always keep fighting. But this can also just be normal behavior of 2 clowns trying to establish dominance.