# Please help with Clownfish



## Milan'22 (Jan 26, 2008)

Hi i have two clownfish in my ninety gallon tank 

When I first got them, one would constantly bother the other, but the smaller one had a hiding place where the bigger one would not fit. Eventually stopped and they were both perfectly fine.
A few days ago however, it started happening again. The small one has no where to hide and the bigger one always goes up to him/her and they both kind of shake, but there is also physical contact and a lot of chasing. The smaller one seems paler and has frayed fins from these attacks


Is this just mating and is normal and will go away eventually (mating season?). Or should I be worried about this. If it is neccessary, I think I will be able to remove either one of them easily as they always come to my hand when I feed. I have a small tank where I could put one temporarily.


FYI all the othe fish are fine and so are the levels. Last time they stopped fighting was when I started using reverse osmosis water (bcame much cleaner.) :fish:


----------



## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Clownfish are interesting critters in that they can be either male or female by choice. The females are the dominant ones, and they are usually the bigger ones. The bigger ones bully the smaller ones into submission in an effort to force them to be males. As such, newly formed pairs of clowns will fight for awhile until they finish hashing this out, and sometimes it takes a few tries. Clownfish are very much like saltwater cichlids, so you can think of this in much the same way that cichlids fight. 
Love hurts.


----------



## Milan'22 (Jan 26, 2008)

Okay I thought that it had something to do with establishing dominance I just wanted to make sure it wasn't anything bad.

Thanks for the reply!


----------

