Pairs Maroon clowns.

[Kodiak]

I got 2 Maroon clowns. One slightly bigger than the other. I assumed when I bought them from separate that one was a male and one was a female.

they were put in separate bags. I then added them to a single bucket that I drip acclimated to my reef water. (15g reef) After the first 5 minutes in the bucket one (the bigger one, assumed female) started to harass the smaller one.

I soon put one at a time, the male first into my reef. They picked out a "general" territory. The male will basically hide and run when the female approaches.

The female will kind of "hunt" for the male and nip at it until he runs into a different cave.

This behavior doesn't continue all the time. They have periods, over an hour of peace. The aggressive behavior only lasts 1-2 minutes.

I plan to leave them for up to a week until the female accepts the male. What can I do, and what should i not do to help lower stress and get them to pair?

 

[archer772]

Putting them in a larger tank might help sorry but a 15 gallon is way to small for even 1 maroon clown

 

[Kodiak]

Putting them in a larger tank might help sorry but a 15 gallon is way to small for even 1 maroon clown

they are about 1'' and 1.5''

I plan to move them to a 55+ in the next 2 months.

Any real advice?

 

[archer772]

What I said is REAL advice, sorry if you dont like what I have to say but the 15 is too small for maroons. Marrons are very aggresive clowns, it can be difficult keeping 2 together in a 55 with out one killing the other so I would try to return them until you get your 55 or larger setup and then get 2 of them as small as you can.

 

[Catpicklesdog]

I've got to agree with Archer I'm afraid. The issues will most likely be due to the size of tank and the lack of space available to own territory. Knowing what my one maroon clown is like in a 182 gallon tank, I really do think that your tank size is the main issue coupled with the aggressive nature of the maroons.

 

[Fishieness]

While I don't necessarily agree that a 15 is too large for a single maroon clownfish THAT small in the short term, I do agree that it could be leading to the forced aggression of the two.
And just because one is larger, doesn't mean it is the female, or that there is a female at all. If they came from a tank where there were MANY clownfish, then they still both may be juviniles at the moment and they still have a lot of fighting to do to work it out. Or if they had both been in a tank alone or almost alone for a little while they could BOTH be females. Maroons are much harder to pair up than just about all other species of clownfish because of their aggression. It is best to introduce a known female with a smaller juvinile clown in a separate container such as a clear tupperware container with holes poked in it and let the female get out her aggression on the container, and then after a while, release them. There will always be bashing between two introduced clownfish, but it can just be especially bad with maroons. I would watch closely to make sure the "male" isn't being beaten TOO badly. You may have to provide a little home for him to get some safety if it gets too bad. The size of the tank doesn't help because the "male" has fewer places to hide and rest, but they would be aggressive with each other this early in the game even in much larger tanks.

 

[Kodiak]

I understand.

However I do have 40 pounds of LR with A LOT of corals. I have at least 8+ caves. The bullied one has a lot of room to hide ect.

I will separate them by tomorrow if it gets too bad. But it isnt that extreme at the moment.

 

[ke6cdh]

I purchased 3 gold stripe maroon clownfish for my 125 gallon tank. I placed them in a 5 gallon bucket and dripped water from my tank into the bucket to acclimate them. I watched them while they were in a small bucket together and they were fine. When I placed them in my tank (don't use a net on maroon clownfish it can hurt them) they seemd fine. I went to sleep and the next morning 2 were buddies swimming together on one side of the tank and the third one was on the other side of the tank with his/her fins ripped up. Even with a 6 foot long 125 gallon tank, it proved to be too small for the 3 maroon clownfish I had to take the one back to my local fish store. They did not give me credit until a week or 2 later after he/she had time to heal so they could sell him to someone else. With the 2 that I have in my tank one is very agressive with the other at feeding time. The larger one seems to want to keep the smaller one small and on a diet and she will nip at him if she thinks he is eating too much.

 

[pkumar]

This is great info. I just posted some pics w/ my clowns. Took better part of 4-5 weeks, for one of the maroons to recover from getting beat up pretty badly initially. I did not know what sex / and or age of the fish I had picked, but were swimming together today. I have "heard" that clowns have ability to change sex, is this true? Will need to do some reading.

 

[ke6cdh]

It is my understanding that clownfish have the ability to change from genderless to male and then from male to female. A bunch of juveniles will be genderless then as they mature the dominant one of the group will turn female and the next dominate one will become male and the rest will stay genderless. Of something happens to the female the male will become female ( he will now be the most dominate) and next dominate one will become male. If something happens to the male, then the next ranking dominate genderless one will become male. Once a clownfish has changed sex to female, it can not change back.