How long should I wait?

J

Joe Pusdesris

New member
My clownfish are not displaying submisisve behavior. I have had my black/standard hybrid for about a year now and she is quite large. Yesterday I added a tiny naked clown about 1/3 her size and she is constantly chasing it around the tank. I suppose the naked clown can be female since it was in it's own tank at the pet store, though it is just so small.

I mean, the hybrid even bites me when I put my hand in the tank, so she is rather agressive. What course of action is recommended here?
 
Last edited:
At 1/3 her the size of the large clownfish i doubt the naked is female. Most probably still a juvenile. I would just monitor the situation very closely and let the pairing process take its course, unless real damage is being done to the smaller clownfish.
 
OK, so a small peice of the rear fin has been bitten off, and agression hasn't slowed too much... Though there seems to be less laybored breathing?

Why is the new one running instead of being submissive? Do I have two females?

You can see the smaller one fleeing as the larger one approches.
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Y8QRh7TAqU_HXnrJ4tJptQ?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_xXnKvgKPgX4/S1iGd3Ub3KI/AAAAAAAABE4/oBogNdMtb5M/s800/IMG_0378.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/deformative0/10Gallon?feat=embedwebsite">10 gallon</a></td></tr></table>
 
Joe Pusdesris said:
OK, so a small peice of the rear fin has been bitten off, and agression hasn't slowed too much... Though there seems to be less laybored breathing?

Why is the new one running instead of being submissive? Do I have two females?

You can see the smaller one fleeing as the larger one approches.
Click to expand...

Keep an eye on them if the aggression gets worse or doesn't reduce you can do a few different things.

1. put them both in a new tank for a few weeks
2. rearrange their tank so that the female's favorite spots are moved/removed
3. separate them
 
Thanks for the advice. She bit me a bunch of times when I was moving her cave, so I think I upset her enough to leave the new clown alone for a while.
 
Ok, so the small one started doing the submissive quivers, but dispite this and my destruction of her cave, the large one is still agressive. She almost killed the little one by scaring it into the skimmer overflow, so I kinda want to put one in a breeder net sort of thing. If I do this, which one should be put in the breeder net? Or is this overall a bad idea?
 
Try keeping their bellies full and keep the lights dim. Do you have antinic lighting you can keep on? How big is your tank?
 
jdak said:
Try keeping their bellies full and keep the lights dim. Do you have antinic lighting you can keep on? How big is your tank?
Click to expand...

Dimming the lights over the tank or covering the top of the tank is excellent advise to reduce aggression. However, if I may add to this general statement, I recently learned that fishs' eyes are very sensitive to blue light. Much like ours are to green light. So, using an actinic over the tank would be like us looking through NVGs. It's actually quite bright.
As such, I would go with a red spectrum so it not only looks dim to your eyes but to theirs.
I plan to use red in the future to simulate dawn/dusk.
 
I seperated my female in a large net so she could see the new clown but not be able to attack it. I did this also due to letting my new clown get used to the tank for 24hrs. After 24hrs passed i released the female and she bullied the new clown for a couple of hours but then eventually paired. Hope this helps.
 
If things do not improve by tomorrow I will walk up to pet supplies plus and buy a breeder net + a net to catch the fish with. Things always seem not as bad in the morning, but as the day progresses the fish gets in a lot more trouble.
 
Well, I isolated the large clown in a plastic breeder thing. I will release her back into the water before te lights go out. The small fish is digging the fact that it can eat without being attacked and taking advantage of the opportunity.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

B
Ritteri Swollen Mouth
Replies
8
Views
648
Bakeman
B
B
Left Tank for a long time, now want to reboot
Replies
8
Views
231
SantaMonica
S
R
How is my chemistry looking?
Replies
1
Views
89
Uncle99
Uncle99
K
Mandarin acting strange
Replies
4
Views
1K
OrionN
OrionN
R
some random questions
Replies
1
Views
139
SantaMonica
S
Back
Top