Maroon clown mating behavior

[HuBu]

i was wondering if anyone would know they behaviors of mating maroon clowns because i introduce a (around 3") female maroon into my tank, which has male maroon. so far the male maroon is swimming along side with the female. the male swims around with female, and on occasions rub against the female. also, the female sometimes does a slow dart at the small male and the small male would do something similar to it.

 

they are both hiding around the a small cave like structure. (pic of the cave is the attached image.)

 

does anyone know whether this is normal behavior or not? any comments or suggestion or experience is appreciated.

 

TIA.

[LoneWolf02]

how long has the two been together. it takes awhile for them to bond. how do you know the sex of the fish???

[reefitis]

hey hubu, it could be possible that the two may be getting along. of course the only way to tell a male and a female is to take into consideration a true pair, with the larger one being the female. in maroons, the size difference is great, but there may be some exceptions. when a maroon is courting another maroon, the male displays to the female a type of arching or trembling motion as if in tetanus (seen my maroon do this to a larger maroon i introduced to my tank, but larger maroon was really really agressive).

 

just to be safe, do u have an anemone or coral for them to host? if not u should get one just in case

 

"thus any group of small fish will yield a pair, but purchasing two large fish is certain to result in two determined females" marine reef aquarium handbook c/o stryfe

 

my one cent

[newreefers]

If the smaller one (male) gets next to the big one (female) and then shakes, it means he is submitting to her dominance and within about 2 months they should be mating.

[HuBu]

the bigger clown is about 2x the size of the smaller clown. i bought the smaller maroon about 2 wks ago from the LFS. and my friend had a large maroon. assuming that its a female. i introduced it into the tank and now the two are swimming and hiding in the cave together. i havent notice any shaking or shuddering of the male clown. ill try to keep an eye on it.

 

i do currently have a frogspawn coral, which i hope they would accept as a host since i m not too big on anenome and the type that i like is a blue tip hatian anenome. but i havent seent hose around for awhile now. thanks for the replies.