2 unrelated clownfish questions

[magranche]

1) Have you ever had a clownfish eat to the point that it cannot swim? I have a Percula that consistently eats until it literally cannot swim...at all. It will just float around the aquarium upside down. Sometimes he will get stuck on his side under various objects. This lasts about 30 minutes until he relieves himself and is on his merry way. I was never concerned about this until it got so bad 2 weeks that my emerald crab caught him and ate almost an entire fin. Fortunately, I constantly loiter by my aquarium and was able to set him free. Crab has since been rehomed and fish is fine! I will attach a video for your viewing pleasure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE8YwgWEpAM&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMaKgq3MC_Q&feature=youtu.be

2) My clownfish have recently come to despise each other. Well, it's mainly a one sided hate...the other is just clueless. I have had them for about a year. They used to live together fairly peacefully but recently things have become a bit more shaky. One is an ocellaris and one is a percula. When I purchased them the percula had been living at the LFS I worked at for over a year alone in a ten gallon tank. The ocellaris was brand new and very little. I figured the percula would be the female and ocellaris the male. They bickered but no more than normal. The percula happily lived in the BTA for about 6 months until he was kicked out by the ocellaris about a month ago. Prior to that the ocellaris had absolutely no interest in the BTA. The percula is now getting beat up and is banished to about 1/8 of the tank. I went from a 28 to a 60 cube several weeks ago and I figured this may break up the battles a bit...it did not. The clownfish are now roughly the same size. Do you think the ocellaris is reaching sexual maturity? The percula really does not seem to mind submitting...but I am confused! In your opinion is there any hope or should I separate them before things get worse. I really love them both and ideally would like to keep both but would not want to see either get hurt.

Thanks!

 

[rogerstammy]

Maybe the other clownfish isn't attracted to the ones inability to swim after eating?



I'm teasing, I do find it interesting how it swims.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Two observations. First is that it seems that the clown is gulping air and actually needs to belch it out, to me anyway.

Two: Hold your phone horizontal when you video with it and you will be amazed at the difference in how your video looks Only take pictures vertical not videos.

 

[OrionN]

The stomach is full of air that is why he cannot swim, but foat to the top. Either that fish swallow too much air, or have air blader problem. I would mix flake food with tank water than pour it in. This way the fish does not gulp in a bunch of air when he eat.

 

[magranche]

Thanks, that's exactly what it was. Unfortunately, sometimes he gets overly enthused when I'm feeding and just goes to the top searching for food/gulping air. Regardless, he is much much better and floats around far less! Any idea about their recent anemone switch/extreme hatred?

Miranda

 

[OrionN]

Your Percula is a runt. He likely have some problem and does not grow very fast and never reach maturity. The Ocellaris on the other hand, started out small but now overtake the Percula and become the dominate fish. I think she reach sexual maturity now and changing into a female. Ocellaris and Percula does not exact dominate /submissive signals. Because of this reason, the Percula is getting really beat up. The will be fine after a few weeks.
The exact same thing happened to me but mine was the other way around. On Snowflake was a runt, and does not grow anywhere near as fast as my Onyx Percula. The Snowflake started out bigger by a lot but ended up smaller and become a male while the Onyx start out smaller but become a female.
My Onyx beat up my Snowflate for quite a while before the settle down and paired up.

 

[magranche]

Thanks OrionN! So you think there is still a chance of them pairing up?