vibrating clown

[kyliegirl]

I brought a new clown today, but from a totally different store, this one is very dark with deep orange body and black tail and a pale orange face, its black markings are more dense on its fins.

I added it to the tank and my light orange clown began to vibrate whenever close to the black one. I am unfamiliar with these actions, but they seemed to have gotten along extremely quickly.

The new clown I got is much smaller than my current, and the orange one keeps swimming close to the small black one and vibrating.

Can anyone tell me what exactly the big one is trying to do? Is it a bonding behaviour?

 

[angelsj247]

the vibrating clown means
he is giving into the other one saying that he knows she is the female. so he will be the male, he is just submitting to her. perfectly normal, looks like your clowns matched up well.
accually its wierd that the bigger one is submitting to the smaller one. normally the bigger one wil be the female and the smaller one that vibrates would be the male.

 

[kyliegirl]

lol yeah, i thought the bigger one is meant to be the female. Oh well, at least they paired up rather quickly and are happy. The clown looks alot more pleased with a friend in the tank, it has been alone for a week since the other one had a mishap with the powerhead.

I think the other one was from the same batch though, this one I know is from a completely different batch from another store.

 

[Krazy]

my cinnimon clown does this to my yellow tang.... they are always paired up in the tank too, weird huh...

its like the clown is the tang's side-kick...

 

[Safir]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7538969#post7538969 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Krazy K
my cinnimon clown does this to my yellow tang.... they are always paired up in the tank too, weird huh...

its like the clown is the tang's side-kick...

since someone had to say it:

they're like nemo and dory! :lol:


Every day i hear of strange behavior in fish kept in captivity - really quite interesting

 

[RobNJ]

i always wondered why my one clown would make a vibrate like move to my other clown. Now i know.

 

[dantodd]

It is pretty common for the female to do the vibrating first, it is a way of showing the male what to do to show his submission. Once the smaller one starts to regularly vibratethen they will start to behave like a real pair. You'll likely see less of this behavior at that point but it will still happen occasionally with the larger (female) charging the male and stopping short when he shows his side and vibrates.