Clownfish Woes...

Manners · Mar 31, 2013

My LFS and some research told me that I could house two Occellaris of different colors together as long as they're Occellaris. So I purchased an ORA Black Ice Snowflake and an ORA Midnight Clown. It's really weird.. The Snowflake is definitely bigger, and they DO swim together... but when I had them in my RSM130D they constantly were bickering over who got to stay in the anemone.

Today I transferred everything over to my new tank (40 Breeder, drilled with ~20-25 gallon sump) I took the BTA's back because they were being a fricking nuisance with moving every where!!! They are in a completely new environment, with no anemones besides rock anemones. They are swimming together 90% of the time, but I still seem some light aggression. The Snowflake likes to swim very fast towards the Midnight like she's trying to scare him off but stops abruptly.

Will I have any chance of these two getting along, or was my research invalid? I can always take one out, and that becomes another big choice.

Any tips here?

SeahorseKeeper · Mar 31, 2013

It sounds like typical clown behavior. My female likes to assert her dominance over the male, daily.

T.W. · Mar 31, 2013

yeah my wife does that too..oh wait talking fish here aren't we! Sorry

Manners · Mar 31, 2013

SeahorseKeeper said:
It sounds like typical clown behavior. My female likes to assert her dominance over the male, daily.

T.W. said:
yeah my wife does that too..oh wait talking fish here aren't we! Sorry

They have both been in the tank together for apprx 3-4 weeks now, one would be dead by now if they weren't going to get along right? I don't see any nipped fins or anything...

SeahorseKeeper · Mar 31, 2013

Manners said:
They have both been in the tank together for apprx 3-4 weeks now, one would be dead by now if they weren't going to get along right? I don't see any nipped fins or anything...

It would be dead or in bad shape. I had a female clown reject a male and it was quite evident with how aggressive she was to the male.

Manners · Mar 31, 2013

SeahorseKeeper said:
It would be dead or in bad shape. I had a female clown reject a male and it was quite evident with how aggressive she was to the male.

Sweet, thanks a lot. I guess they're just doing the regular clown thing. They both look great..

icedearth15324 · Apr 1, 2013

I housed a perc and occy in a tank together successfully for about 2 months. Then the Occy really started beating up the perc. It was evident that the occy was going to kill the perc after awhile, fins were nipped and ragged, etc. Separated the two, and now they are fine.

As long as there are no nipped fins you should be fine.