twitching ocellaris clown?

[rozzzna]

hi all

ive had my pair of ocellaris clowns a few months now

they are almost the same size, but i think the one that is slightly bigger has to be the female..

more recently the female chases around the male, and the male responds to it byt twitching his body towards the female and almost shake a bit..

is that normal behavior for the male to do when chased?

i dont have an anemone for the clowns and they havent found a home in one of my other corals.. could that be why the female is so aggressive?

my tank is only 42g, and i dont think that is quite big enough for any type of anemone.. what do you guys think?

thank you in advance

 

[bwest]

Re: twitching ocellaris clown?

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14292242#post14292242 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rozzzna
is that normal behavior for the male to do when chased?

Yeah this is normal, I believe it's an act of submission.

 

[IFbettas]

I've noticed this a lot lately with my pair of clowns. My pair are almost the same size too.

 

[CMBlake2]

agree with bwest. Perfectly normal. Don't worry about it

 

[Legacy2005]

ya its normal. the one that is twitching is the one that will become the male. once they have established who is who look for the female to start getting larger then the male.

 

[hamiltonguy]

yeah, i've had my clowns for a while and my male clown (smaller) still sometimes does that. As bwest said, it's a sign of submission and nothing to worry about.

 

[Sump'n2do]

Very interesting. I am learning a lot on these forums.

 

[decent37]

I only have one clown in my tank and he twitches all the time so I guess there doesnt have to be 2 fish in the tank or it doesnt have anything to do with it.

 

[MatthewLaw]

i purchased a pair of clowns and the female (larger!) chased the male frequently. she would do that near vertical shake. over hte next few weeks this action continued and the male lost a lot of his color and spent most of his day hiding.

i separted the pair and everyone seems to be doing well. Sassy (larger female) 'plays' with a blue/yellow damsel in a 50g tank and the smaller perc (Sickie since only survivor from a tank crash a few weeks ago) has regained his color and hangs out with a Royal Gramma (Grampa).