smaller of maroon pair stressed?

[DMK]

i bought 2 small juvenile maroons 2 weeks ago. 1 is noticably larger and i think is now female. the smaller 1 i believe will be male. when i put them in they were always together and began hosting RBTA. after about 5 or 6 days i noticed bigger 1 chasing smaller 1, sometimes nipping and not allowing it in RBTA during day. at night both are in the anenome. during the day the smaller 1 hangs in pretty much same spot. eats, but very little. he is small( 1.25") so not sure he needs alot of food. bigger 1 is about 1.75". he does have a couple nip marks on fins. besides this and him staying to himself, he seems ok. just kinda lonely looking. is this normal when maronns are in pairing process. i try to feed it things it might favor to keep him healthy. i offer mysis, formula 1 flakes, cyclopeeze, and new life spectrum pellets. only thing he seems to care for kind of is the formula 2 flakes. i even offered live feeder shrimp today and he wasn't interested. what, if anything, can i do?

 

[Pandora]

Maroon females can unfortunately be quite aggressive/territorial. My last female killed the male that she was sold to me with as a "mated pair", but before that, I had a pair that were quite adorable, and never had these growing pains; the little male never left her side, and found a host in a hairy mushroom next to the BTA, giving her the "throne". I really think you're going to have to stick out some of it. You did the right thing buying them together, neither full sized, and adding them together.

Are you aware that clowns (and many marine fish) can change sex? The larger of the two is by default female, and the other will stay male so long as she is in the tank. It's possible that the two juveniles are still in that somewhat indeterminant stage, working out the pecking order (though it should be clear, with that size difference). So long as he is eating, I would let him stay in and eat flakes or whatever he is taking. If he starts to look really listless and distressed, or his fins sustain too much damage, I would take him out and give up on the pair idea.