Clown help

[Kapital]

Any idea what is doing on? Are they fighting or establishing dominance. Don't want one to kill the other. Any suggestions?

https://vimeo.com/124273353

 

[Clowny88]

It looks like establishing dominance. It should start to die down, as one takes the throne as the dominant one. The picking and pecking is okay... But watch for things like grabbing hold of fins, etc.

 

[Webmanny]

I agree. This is very normal. The next step will be the twitching or spasm. The female becomes the boss, as always, and the male will continue to do the twitching or shacking. This scared the crap out of me too at the beginning.

 

[hobbzz]

Bickering is normal at first. That may be a little more aggressive than I usually see if they're doing it constantly. Sometimes it's more timid. Just make sure they aren't locking jaws. If they do, you need to separate them. They appear to be almost the same size, which is bad, so I would watch very closely.

I had two that were pretty much the same size because I couldn't find any with a big size difference. They were fighting like yours and I came home to this





We removed the healthier one, and kept the beat up one. It actually healed completely, is now the female of a different pair (sans tail) and just started to lay eggs.

 

[Clowny88]

Bickering is normal at first. That may be a little more aggressive than I usually see if they're doing it constantly. Sometimes it's more timid. Just make sure they aren't locking jaws. If they do, you need to separate them. They appear to be almost the same size, which is bad, so I would watch very closely.

I had two that were pretty much the same size because I couldn't find any with a big size difference. They were fighting like yours and I came home to this





We removed the healthier one, and kept the beat up one. It actually healed completely, is now the female of a different pair (sans tail) and just started to lay eggs.

+1... If they are the same size, one may never submit to the other.

And I had a situation where the female get beating up my male... Even though he was twitching and submitting to her every time. He got stressed out and sick... I had to dump the female back to LFS. So if the behavior doesn't start to transition in a positive direction, might be a bad situation.

 

[hobbzz]

I should have added that they should figure it out relatively quickly, usually within a day. If they're still fighting on the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th day I would separate them, and replace one with a new one half the size.

 

[MrHarvard]

I agree with pretty much everything everyone else has said. I'm not sure if you purchased these 2 together or if you got them from separate places but if they have both already undergone their sexual changes and are both female this won't end until one kills the other. If they are from the same fry then I wouldn't worry to much this is normal while trying to establish dominance. The closer they are in size the worse it normally is. Just keep an eye on them and make sure they don't injure one another to badly. I had a pair that locked lips for almost a week before one finally backed down. GL