Size difference in paired clowns

[AmberL]

I bought two juvenile clown fish in April. They went through the "dance" of establishing dominance. They are paired up; they hang out and sleep in the same area of the tank.

My question: How much larger is a normal female clown than her mate? My female is easily TWICE the size of the male. It seems as if the male did not grow AT ALL since I purchased him in April. If he did grow, it wasn't much. I'm just concerned that he may not be getting enough to eat - he's not aggressive when I feed and the other fish snatch up the food and he gets whatever happens to go past him. I'll put more food in, hoping he'll get some, but the other fish just eat it.

 

[hypnoj]

depending on the species of clown, that is normal.

 

[stevetcg]

My Occs are about the same size. Maybe 1/4 inch difference. My maroons are at least 3 inches different.

 

[AmberL]

Mine are both Ocellaris Clownfish

 

[velvetelvis]

It depends on the pair. I've had some pairs of ocellaris whose sizes differed only slightly. On the other hand, the last pair of SA black ocellaris that I had were dramatically different in size: the female was almost 3" long, and the male was just a little over 1".

 

[ILLiDaN]

Its normal, you could feed more and they would grow a bit more but other than that the male will stay the same size.

 

[phender]

As long as your male is not skinny don't worry about it. It is normal and as stated above size differences vary in individual pairs.