Pairing behavior...is this normal?

[Chelsey]

As a few of you may know, I bought a bonded pair of snowflake clowns on Friday, only to have the male jump and subsequently die on Saturday. I bought another snowflake Saturday and introduced him to the female. They are currently in a small critter keeper that's in my cube tank until I am sure their nano cube is ready for them. There are two curved PVC pieces in the critter keeper so that they each have a place to sleep and their own territory. The female is showing the male who is boss (but not fin nipping or being overly aggressive) and the male is shivering in submission.

Here's where I get concerned: The male's breathing rate is relatively fast, at least faster than the female's. He is also not eating. I realize that I've only had him since Saturday, but as you can imagine he was not cheap and I'd rather not have this one die too. Is he not eating and breathing faster because he's stressed from the female showing her dominance and the less than ideal quarters he's currently housed in, or is there something wrong?

Both fish had been at the LFS for a while and though I'm not exactly sure how long I know it was longer than a week and I also know that they were both eating at the store. The male isn't super skinny but neither of them are what I would consider pleasantly plump. Thank you for any advice you can give


Chelsey

 

[Arati]

Try some live baby brine, that always gets the stubborn eaters for me.

 

[Vi3tKid420]

have the fish store feed the fish before you buy it so they live longer at least which means they get used to living in your tank

 

[Chelsey]

I did.

 

[Letmegrow]

Sounds like stress.
It could be burned gills from being around too much Amm/Nit.

 

[Chelsey]

Here's tonight's update:

I moved the pair of clowns into their nano cube and immediately they were swimming around more. However, the male has now slowed in activity while the female is still swimming around quite a bit. I just tried feeding them the EXACT food that they were fed at the LFS, and while the female gorged herself I don't think the male at a single piece of mysis The male's breathing rate hasn't really changed either, unfortunately. He's still showing no signs of disease other than fast breathing rate and not eating. If he's not showing any symptoms how do I treat and what do I treat for?

 

[Mike31154]

Give him some more time before worrying too much. I have a maroon pair and compared to the female, the little male hardly eats and is very picky. He prefers CycloPeeze and barely ever takes any flake. He also likes frozen (and live) brine shrimp. I sometimes fret that he's not getting enough, but he looks healthy and is active. These guys can go for quite a while without eating. When I got the first maroon, it didn't eat for close to a week and during that time it did laps back & forth along the length of the tank all day. Don't ask me where the energy came from to do that while not eating, but after that initial week, it started eating like nothing was amiss.