Maroon Romeo

K

knowthemath

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Feb 16, 2004
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I got a male and a female gold stripe maroon this week. They were not sold as a pair, just a male and a female. Ever since I put them in the tank, the male has not left the female alone. I never saw him nipping her......he just continuously swam up against her. Basically, wherever she went, he followed. Is this normal?

To make a long story, short, she is now dead. Could he have stressed her out? Just watching him stressed me. The last time I looked at them (about 5 hours ago), everything was just great.
 
Can you post more about tank size, what size the fish were etc. The only difference between male and female clowns is size, and if both were small juvies then there is no way to tell. How do you know you got a male and female? If you got two pretty good size clowns then they were both females. Generally ramming the side is a very aggressive posture. That fish is trying to overthrow the others power. How is water quality? Anyway, hope this helps and good luck.
 
I'm puzzled about the sale. Males will only stay male if there is a female keeping them in line. Otherwise, as MSL said, you will have two females, and one will be killed. Which was the larger fish?

If the LFS sold you a fish that had been kept on its own for any length of time as a male, then you should probably take your business elsewhere.

On the other hand, the behavior sounds fairly similar to clown courtship, but the male behavior sounds more like female behavior.
 
Let me first say that the only info I have or that my LFS has is what we have gleaned from the internet, the forum (which is wonderful) books, and customers. We are still babes about so many things. The LFS owner has never had saltwater fish and is starting very slowly.

Now to the maroons. The maroons came directly from a wholesaler. It never went into the tanks at the LFS. I asked for a male and a female. The one who died was quite a bit larger (3") than the other and only had a small stripe on its head. The other, the one I think is the male, is smaller (2.5) and has the normal striping. We are depending on the wholesaler for sexing.
This in itself may be a mistake.
The smaller of the two was continually rubbing against the larger. I wouldn't call it ramming. The larger never really tried to get away from the smaller one. "She" just continued on whatever she was doing.
What do you think?
 
Forget that I saw your tank specs After I posted. My memeroy is getting real bad. I should have remembered you post them there.

Was the larger one eating? How were the motion of thr gill opening and the fins next to the gill openning?

Ray
 
I didn't notice anything unusual concerning the gills and fins. The smaller one (I'll no longer call it a male) just continously rubbed up against the larger one. My parameters are good. My corals are all happy which is suppose to be a good indicator, but at this point, I test anyway.

I just returned from the store and separated the two maroons there. Again one is quite a bit larger than the other with only a single stripe across its head; the smaller one has all three stripes. In this case, the larger one was harassing the smaller. This did not appear to be courtship. It was ramming and nipping the smaller one.

I'm coming to the conclusion that the wholesaler had no idea what they were giving us or knew that we too dim-witted to know the difference. When we asked for a pair, they sent a large maroon with a single stripe and a smaller more colorful maroon and said "here's a pair" or in this case two pairs.

Do you think I'm off base?

Do males and females look different? I haven't read anything that states that. I think the two maroons with only one stripe may be poor specimens.
 
if they were that big, they could have easly been both females.
 
The action you saw in the LFS is not unusal. The dominate one is show it's dominance. It happens a lot when they are added to new tank or new to each other. If it is a male and female it will usually change with time and be seen way less often.

As to the bars. The Captive breed ones are showing more and more "misbars" in clowns. Some think it maybe due to gene pool effects.

Ray
 
I think you're right. I've looked at sites off and on all day, and I have found nothing that states the maroons should not have bars. I know the stripes will not turn gold until they mature, but I think these fish are definitely misbarred.

I am going recommend complaining about the quality of the maroons to the wholesaler.
 
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