Clown Behavior - Maybe you can explain

[fkbsar]

I've had a pair of false percs for about two years since they were about 1 inch long. They had established themselves as male and female and shared three RBTAs that were clustered in the tank with no problems. This past week I've noticed that the one that used to be smaller (male) is now larger and chasing and nipping at the now smaller one (the one that used to be larger and the female). The one that is now larger has chased the other clownfish out of the RBTA leaving it homeless for a while. I'm confused. Have they switched sexes? Do they do that?

 

[Slakker]

Generally when clownfish become female, they don't/can't change back to male. It's possible that they hadn't really established themselves yet, but it's also a possibility that they're both female and will continue to fight.

 

[fkbsar]

WOW! Never knew they could both remain female - interesting. I did find her(?) a new home - one of the RBTAs decided to walk up the glass so I sort of directed it to the other side of the tank and into some rockwork and now the other clown is hosting there.

 

[Slakker]

Remain female?

They start out as ungendered juveniles, transition to male, and the dominant one from there becomes the female.

If they've been pretty small this whole time, it's possible that they were still juveniles/males and the one you thought was male has taken up the position of dominant female while the one that was larger has stayed male.

 

[fkbsar]

Ahhh, I see I had it confused. I thought they started out as females. Thanks.