Clownfish won’t pair?

[Mmotux]

Seems like the bigger one wants to pair and even shakes. Smaller one seems to shake as well but not as much. Female seems to “charge” the male over and over. And nothing. And ideas? What’s going on here? 

[Clown79]

Sounds normal. Give it time, it doesn't always happen immediately.

[Mmotux]

Well I have a Picasso which was on there first. I got a ocellaris because I read op on perculas and such. Turns out my Picasso is a Percula? I didn’t know because of the very little black lines. Especially on the body. Am I wrong. What should I do? 

[Sancho]

19 minutes ago, Mmotux said:

Well I have a Picasso which was on there first. I got a ocellaris because I read op on perculas and such. Turns out my Picasso is a Percula? I didn’t know because of the very little black lines. Especially on the body. Am I wrong. What should I do? 

They can still pair even if they are different. But some just don’t have chemistry or they could both be female and that usually ends in one getting killed or bullied by the more dominant of the pair. With all the breeding now it’s pretty impossible to determine the difference anymore. Number of dorsal fin spines from my knowledge is the only way to determine the difference between the two, eye color can also be a determination. Just keep an eye on them one should submit if not and they stay aggressive maybe re-home one and try again with another juvenile. 

[Mmotux]

38 minutes ago, Sancho said:

They can still pair even if they are different. But some just don’t have chemistry or they could both be female and that usually ends in one getting killed or bullied by the more dominant of the pair. With all the breeding now it’s pretty impossible to determine the difference anymore. Number of dorsal fin spines from my knowledge is the only way to determine the difference between the two eye color can also be a determination. Just keep an eye on them one should submit if not and they stay aggressive maybe re-home one and try again with another juvenile. 

Will do thank you. And yes. Very hard to tell. Of course I did my research before hand. But I got it a little jumbled up. Hopefully the new smaller one will submit. He has shaken before. But the female will still charge him. And chase him. They also get close. But don’t seem to hang around together too much. Time will tell. 

[Clown79]

True percs and ocellaris pair, there is no issue there. 

 

Its whether the 2 fish will like eachother and that can happen over night or take time.

[Clown79]

3 hours ago, Mmotux said:

Will do thank you. And yes. Very hard to tell. Of course I did my research before hand. But I got it a little jumbled up. Hopefully the new smaller one will submit. He has shaken before. But the female will still charge him. And chase him. They also get close. But don’t seem to hang around together too much. Time will tell. 

That is normal behaviour of the female clown. That is what they do to maintain dominance over the males.

 

As long as there is no lip locking, slamming into rocks, glass, physical damage, you are ok.

 

Female clowns bully males by nature.

[Mmotux]

6 hours ago, Clown79 said:

That is normal behaviour of the female clown. That is what they do to maintain dominance over the males.

 

As long as there is no lip locking, slamming into rocks, glass, physical damage, you are ok.

 

Female clowns bully males by nature.

Ich?

[jservedio]

You will know shortly if it is, but keep in mind clowns just have weird markings sometimes (especially the weird patterned ones). My female clown has had a few pinpoint size white spots that are just natural markings and she's had them her whole life. Keep your water quality up and if you start seeing more, you know you've got ich.

 

How long have you had them and are they the only thing in the tank?

[Mmotux]

2 hours ago, jservedio said:

You will know shortly if it is, but keep in mind clowns just have weird markings sometimes (especially the weird patterned ones). My female clown has had a few pinpoint size white spots that are just natural markings and she's had them her whole life. Keep your water quality up and if you start seeing more, you know you've got ich.

 

How long have you had them and are they the only thing in the tank?

Since Friday! 😞 I since took the female out to closely monitor her. Seems fine. White spots don’t seems as bad. My fish I just added yesterday has no spots. And yes. Only two clowns. Two corals. And three snails. 

[jservedio]

2 hours ago, Mmotux said:

Since Friday! 😞 I since took the female out to closely monitor her. Seems fine. White spots don’t seems as bad. My fish I just added yesterday has no spots. And yes. Only two clowns. Two corals. And three snails. 

All you can really do is wait any see. Unless you are going to prophylactically treat her, you should have just kept her in the DT until you knew it was ich (since you'd have treated both fish anyway if it was). If it's ich, there are tons of threads on here about how to treat it.

If the spots stay the same and don't spread, it's probably just her naturally coloring. If they disappear and don't come back - it was probably just crap that was stuck to the side of her (like fine sand). Feeding them a little extra and keeping water quality up can never hurt anything.

 

Edit: to your first question, my clowns took more than a year to pair up and many more years before they started to spawn. I also know others who had them pair up right away. All you can do is wait and make sure the bigger female doesn't rip the face off of the male. IMO if you have to replace one of the fish, get rid of the smaller one and replace it with an even smaller male - there is always a chance the smaller fish was actually a female. The smaller the male, the less intimidating they are to the female and less she will have to keep them in line.

 

My female is easily 3.5" long and incredibly fat, yet my male is just over 2"- he is probably only about 1/3 her mass and they are both 8 years old. A smaller male is never a bad thing in keeping them from fighting. 

[Mmotux]

5 hours ago, jservedio said:

All you can really do is wait any see. Unless you are going to prophylactically treat her, you should have just kept her in the DT until you knew it was ich (since you'd have treated both fish anyway if it was). If it's ich, there are tons of threads on here about how to treat it.

If the spots stay the same and don't spread, it's probably just her naturally coloring. If they disappear and don't come back - it was probably just crap that was stuck to the side of her (like fine sand). Feeding them a little extra and keeping water quality up can never hurt anything.

 

Edit: to your first question, my clowns took more than a year to pair up and many more years before they started to spawn. I also know others who had them pair up right away. All you can do is wait and make sure the bigger female doesn't rip the face off of the male. IMO if you have to replace one of the fish, get rid of the smaller one and replace it with an even smaller male - there is always a chance the smaller fish was actually a female. The smaller the male, the less intimidating they are to the female and less she will have to keep them in line.

 

My female is easily 3.5" long and incredibly fat, yet my male is just over 2"- he is probably only about 1/3 her mass and they are both 8 years old. A smaller male is never a bad thing in keeping them from fighting. 

Well. I lit her back in the DT this morning. Barley visible. So I put her in. I figured if she’s got ick so does he. And well. It’s 7:30 pm now and almost no visable white spots. Any ideas? Maybe sand? Maybe I overreacted?

[jservedio]

11 hours ago, Mmotux said:

Well. I lit her back in the DT this morning. Barley visible. So I put her in. I figured if she’s got ick so does he. And well. It’s 7:30 pm now and almost no visable white spots. Any ideas? Maybe sand? Maybe I overreacted?

Could have been literally anything - sand, bacteria, etc. Since they were already in your DT, I'd say you overreacted a little. Stressed fish are always more susceptible to infection, and buying a fish, moving it to the DT, taking it out into a QT tank, and putting it back into a DT over the course of 3 days is far more stressful than just dumping it in your DT.

 

If you don't have some really good frozen food, I'd go out and grab some to feed them for a little while.

[Mmotux]

On 4/9/2019 at 7:23 AM, jservedio said:

Could have been literally anything - sand, bacteria, etc. Since they were already in your DT, I'd say you overreacted a little. Stressed fish are always more susceptible to infection, and buying a fish, moving it to the DT, taking it out into a QT tank, and putting it back into a DT over the course of 3 days is far more stressful than just dumping it in your DT.

 

If you don't have some really good frozen food, I'd go out and grab some to feed them for a little while.

Thanks will do. They seem to be doing amazing. 

[SingingSiren]

I have 2 B/W Ocellaris I got over a year ago, about the same time. They are both the same size. I would say they are bonded, no fighting ever, sometimes they'll even sleep in same anemone or have their own.. But there is NO Noticeable size difference..., is that normal? Are neither one a female?