will my maroon clowns pair?

[ocean.mirage]

I just bought 2 -3/4" maroon clown juveniles. I put them both in a 90 Gallon tank. They seem to be fighting constantly. They bite eachothers fins a lot and tussle. Will they pair? is this normal? I have never paired a maroon before. What is the likely hood that one will get killed?

Thanx

 

[Genghis]

Maroons are supposed to be the toughest to get to pair and require a bit more work. Since yours are the same size they may keep fighting till one dies. I've read that you want a decisively bigger female (say 2" or more) and then try a smaller one like the 3/4" one you have. It's still no guarantee because you have to see if the female will accept him. If not, you will have to try another male. It can be done but be prepared to work more for it.

 

[ocean.mirage]

shoot, well there is no catching one now. I guess i have to wait and see. Has anyone had success in this type of situation?

 

[Tofumushrooman]

More than likely one will kill the other, do what you can to seperate them and try and go with a MUCH larger female. They are notoriously aggressive and if the male does not submit shortly they will fight to almost certain death. The real problem is neither is likely a female and both will attempt to assert dominance, which will continue.

 

[ocean.mirage]

bp

 

[Cheebs]

Hey there. I have a maroon in my tank, and I've tried pairing. I introduced a much larger maroon into the tank, and believe it or not the smaller one that was already in the tank practially ripped her to shreds.

I then did more research, which I perhaps should have done in the first place, but there ahve been a few succeses stories in this thread about pairing maroons. The best method went something like this:

Start with a resident maroon in your tank, in other words have a clown already living in the tank on it's own. Then introduce a much smaller clown. How small is up to you, but it's suggested to get almost the smallest you can within reason. One thread in here had good success pairng a big maroon with a male about a quarter of it's size, like 1 and 4 inches let's say.

Anyways, you don't want to just accilimate the new fish and throw him in there with the bigger female. It's best to seperate them for a while. You can sometimes gauge they're reaction to eachother by floating the bag in the tank short term, but the best way is to find some kind of plastic container to put it in, with plenty of holes to allow flow, food, etc. A friend of mine had success with a see-through tupperware container with dozens of slits sawed all around it. Make sure you don't have really jagged edges though.

Anyways, you can then watch how they react to eachother, it could get pretty vicious. When it looks like they are calm around eachother, or even start showing weird behaviour like shaking around or nudging eachother, try lifting the container.

They will most likely fight for some time as the female tries to establish dominance and such, but don't let it get to far. If they start ripping eachothers fins up badly get the guy back under the container, wait for them to stop the aggression and try again. IT could take days, and oyu don't want to rush it. If they are getting hurt or you don't have any success after a few times you may need to try another fish, you don't want to keep a clown trapped in a small plastic container, of course.

Try turning the lights off when you introduce the new guy too, it might help to clam them.

Hope that helps, you may be able to find a few threads about it around here, my info is mostly secondhand

 

[Allanira]

I bought 2 maroons that were the same size. They did act like they were fighting, then 1 got bigger than the other after the dominance dance was over. Now they wont go anywhere without each other. As a matter of fact yesterday the female started midging the male around and he started to convulse. Another domince things lol. They will work it out. I have had mine for a month now and they are fun to watch. They even school and get chased with my other 2 fish whish are a chromis and wrasse.

 

[Mike31154]

With a 90 gal you might be ok. They're still quite small and provided there are plenty of hiding places, they may eventually work out who's the dominant of the two before doing too much damage. I added a second maroon to my 75 gal about 5 months after the first one took residence. It is recommended that the resident maroon is larger than the one added later, but in my case the one I added was about the same size, probably about 2 inches. Several weeks of thinking I made a big mistake ensued. The original maroon was hosting in a BTA and the new one was not allowed anywhere near that territory. Oddly enough, even though he was harrassed, clown 2 never lost any fin material, most of the fighting was mild by maroon standards I guess. Plenty of hiding spots in live rock helped IMO. A blue devil damsel ended up causing the new guy more grief than the resident maroon. In any case after about two weeks, the maroons had sorted it out and the new guy was on his way to being accepted. The resident put on a huge growth spurt and is now more than twice the size of the male.
Just keep an eye on things with your juveniles and if possible, try separating them for a bit with a screened container or something. Judging by their small size, they have a long way to go before maturing enough to sort themselves out.

 

[ocean.mirage]

they fight about once every half hour, but they seem to have tamed down A LOT. there iss no fin damage yet. This is good, because for the first day, they didn't stop fighting