Behavior Between Two Newly Acquainted Clowns

[Falconeer]

Hi all, i've had one of the clowns (both are occelaris) for about three or four weeks (I got him direct from the store, not another reefer) and he is still relatively small in size. He is much darker in color (very dark orange, and very deep black on all fins) than the clown I got today.

The new clown, I believe to be female, or on a track for female (if that makes sense, I don't completely understand the gender assignment process for clowns, but a friend of mine assures me that the darker is male and the lighter a female).

My question isn't about fighting as they're getting along very well (i'm watching them for a couple weeks though, just to make sure...so far no problems). My question is that everytime they seem to group up in one of the caves in the LR, the male does two little moves that I don't understand, haha.

Move 1) He'll angle himself upward and back up a little until his caudal fin is at the substrate, at which point he sort of wiggles pretty quickly and kicks up a little bit of sand

Move 2) He rolls a little bit to one side and then, it looks a bit like he's twitching, or having a seizure, but he twitches towards the female

During all this, the female simply stays put. It doesn't seem to bother either one, and it doesn't seem like an attack of any kind. This is less than 12hrs since introduction of the female. During the introduction, I kept the lights off four about 3.5-4 hrs.

I did some google searches and looked through a couple of pages on here but I couldn't find anything. Any insight?

Thanks,
Falc.

 

[BCreefmaker]

sounds very normal,
1. he would be showing her where to lay the eggs or just spawning behavior (what they do to keep the eggs happy).
2. he is acting submissive to show the female shes the boss.

 

[Falconeer]

sounds very normal,
1. he would be showing her where to lay the eggs or just spawning behavior (what they do to keep the eggs happy).
2. he is acting submissive to show the female shes the boss.

Oh wow! I had no idea. Is it normal that it's so early into adding the female? I wouldve thought it would take months for them to pair.

That's very good to know though, thanks a lot!

 

[velvetelvis]

They probably haven't settled into their respective sexes yet, but if one of them is significantly larger and/or more assertive than the other, that one is likely to become the female. Sometimes it's apparent pretty quickly, while other pairs take longer to sort things out.

It will still take months for them to form a pair bond, especially since they're both juveniles, but it sounds like you're off to a great start. BCreefmaker is right: the smaller clown is performing a submission display to the female. You'll also notice him doing this during confrontations; and my female also elicits submission displays from her mate whenever she's disturbed by something (i.e., me cleaning the tank). You'll have fun with them--clownfish have lots of personality and are always entertaining to watch.