No love for new Clown

TAYGEL · Apr 26, 2014

**CONCERNED FOR NEW CLOWNFISH**

I have had my original clown for just over a year now and it has been my only fish until recently, so I am assuming that she is female.

My "female" clown is just pestering her new tank mate constantly. We purchased a new clown (same type) and "he" is considerably smaller than my "female" clown and we introduced him 4 days ago. After a few minutes of calm checking each other out, my original clown is now just running the poor little guy around constantly with an occasional jab to his body. I'm worried for the small guy. It goes in waves, sometimes she doesn't really care and he just cowers in the corner but other times its all over the tank and it looks like its escalating. I have yet to see any submitting (sideways twitching) from the little guy or any face to face battles(locked jaw). Is the new guy to young to know to submit?! I have seen my original/female clown do the side-ways twitching a couple times on the first day which confused me and seemed to confuse the new clown too. Anywho, just hoping for some feedback on how long it took for other new addition clowns to be accepted by the original clown? Is there hope for these two to pair up or should I give up and save the poor little guy?

Side note: 4 times now I have found the little guy in the back of the tank and had to rescue him. I'm still not sure if he's willingly jumping or if my original clown is making him jump. After each rescue he immediately goes to my original clown and hangs in her shadow. She does take notice and knows he's there and they hang out in peace for some time even though it is in close proximity of the waving hands patch that original clown has hosted. Eventually, however, she turns on him and starts her chase again.

cheers

Nick

TAYGEL · Apr 27, 2014

No clown fish pairing stories!!?

Waffo · Apr 27, 2014

I have the same problem.. Now my small new clown just swims in the corner.. I think their both females and will never get along.

vlangel · Apr 27, 2014

I had a tomato pair that I bought together and they were young juveniles. Mine were the same size but the bossy one bullied the shyer one constantly. I had a 90g tank too but the shy one cowered behind the filter for months. Of course the bossy one got bigger and badder and turned into a full fledge female. LOL. Anyhow I got an anemone and she claimed it right away. She did stop harassing him as much because she didn't want to leave her nem. Eventually she must have decided that there were no other men to choose from so it was him or remain single. She slowly invited him to share the nem. All that took at least a year. They eventually mated and laid eggs about every 2 weeks for years. I still have one of their babies. Anyway, for my clowns it definitely was not love at first sight!

SeahorseKeeper · Apr 28, 2014

When clowns paired, there was some bickering for the first week or two. It just took time.

Jakemac · Apr 28, 2014

I caught the bully clown once in a big net. Left the clown in there to cool down then moved the bully clown into an aclimation box with a wall in the center. I then caught the other clown and put it on ther opposite side.

Fish | Fish

After about 5 min in an unknown enviroment staring at each other between this invisable force field, you could see the stress levels on both fish comeplety change. The bully fish didnt look like she was going to try and kill the other fish anymore and the other one looked like he was drunk.

I let them go back into the tank, and since then they have been in-seperatable.

Sometimes they just need a time out, if you can catch them

eace:

vlangel · Apr 28, 2014

Jakemac said:
I caught the bully clown once in a big net. Left the clown in there to cool down then moved the bully clown into an aclimation box with a wall in the center. I then caught the other clown and put it on ther opposite side.

Fish | Fish

After about 5 min in an unknown enviroment staring at each other between this invisable force field, you could see the stress levels on both fish comeplety change. The bully fish didnt look like she was going to try and kill the other fish anymore and the other one looked like he was drunk.

I let them go back into the tank, and since then they have been in-seperatable.

Sometimes they just need a time out, if you can catch them eace: