Clownfish cliques

[Darth Vedder]

My clown babies are 22 days old and are doing well, but I noticed that most of them huddle together on one side of the tank, and there are about 5-6 that have their own little possy in the other corner by the sponge filter.

Is this normal that they form their own little groups? They did hatch over two nights so is it possible that they have separated based on hatch night?

 

[saltyjo]

That is a really cool observation/theory. Perhaps they can pick out the slight differences of age between them. When I had two batches 5 from one batch and a few from another, someone recomended not combining them even though they were 2 weeks apart. To me it didnt make sense having 2 seperate 10 gallons going for less than 10 tiny little fry. The only thing I observed when I had more than a few in one tank was a bit of interesting aggression where one of the fry chased others around the tank.
Congratulations on getting them this far.

 

[Freddie83]

Interesting, have you noticed a difference in size between the groups?

 

[Darth Vedder]

The sizes are about the same. There are two runs in there that are striped but way smaller but all the rest are pretty much the same size. The ones that hang out in the smaller group all have perfect markings, while the larger group has a mix of misbars and full stripes. Not sure if that is a coincidence or if the loner posse has some sort of requirement to be fully marked to get in the clique lol