2 Tomato clowns???

[lime]

Hello all, I am fairly new in saltwater hobby. I have a 15 gallon tank with 15 lbs. of LR, 4 hermits, 1 cleaner shrimp, a pagoda coral, crushed corals and 18w blue and 18w white, it's been up and running for about 6 mos. now. I have 2 tomato clowns right now, I had the first small 1 for about a week and then I added a slightly bigger 1 last week. Now the bigger 1 is harrasing the smaller 1. My question is would they pair up? Do I have to take out the smaller 1? I would just like to have a pair that would get along, am I on the right track and give them time coz it's been about 6 days now since I introduced the bigger 1 and its still harrasing the smaller 1. I need some advice, Thanks!!!

[GaryG]

The harrassing is normal (as long as you only have two and they are approximately the same age). The clown fish start off as males. When you put a pair together they fight for a few (or more) months to find out who is the dominate one. Once they figure that out the dominate one grows bigger and turns into a female. She is then the undisputed boss.

[Just like us humans] {oops I forgot my wife reads this board}

[DKKA]

Gary is correct, but it isn't always that simple (or painless) to get them to pair up. Especially in a 15 gal tank, the smaller one may not be able to get far enough away from the larger one to survive long enough to be accepted.
Even in larger tanks the more dominate fish may harrass the smaller one so much that it is necessary to seperate them.
If your tank is condusive, you might try using a piece of eggcrate to divide the tank in half for a while if aggression becomes a problem.
hth, Dan

[MontanaRocknReefer]

Hi there! There is no guarantees that they will even pair up! If your lucky they will before one kills the other. This is the world of clown fishes! I just got a bonded pair of maroons and saved me the trouble of going through what you are! Johnny

[beach bum]

Welcome to TRT!

I think you'll have alot of fun keeping clownfish, I spend alot of time watching my pink skunks, especially since the female just started talking to me...yes, talking! It sounds a bit like a frog purring.

Anyhow, tomato clowns are rowdy fish as far as Amphiprion species go. So what your seeing is probably normal juvenile behavior, establishing a hierarchy. Do they both have just the head stripe? Or can you still see some of the midbody stripe on either of them? That can help determine age better than size, since clowns generally stay relatively small until gender is chosen (re: a pair is formed).

Tomatos can also grow to be over 5 inches long, so if you're looking to get them to spawn you might consider giving them a larger tank sometime in the future when they approach maturity.

HTH, have a blast!

[JennM]

I concur with most of what was said above. As long as you don't put two females together, however, unless one is markedly weaker than the other, you should always end up with a pair. (Johnny, Maroons are a bit different in that regard, and it's best to just buy a mated pair).

I've had my pair for almost 2 years now. They were about 4 months old when I got them (tank raised, most likely brother and sister)....well they were brother and brother when I got them , now the female is about 3 times the size of her mate. I've not seen them spawn, but I see them doing the shimmy together IF they have spawned, I'm sure the eggs would have been dinner for my Coral Beauty who is forever hanging with the clowns, I think he thinks he's a clown.

Tomatoes can get big, so yes a larger tank might be in their future, however I've noticed that my pair stay in their corner. They live in a LTA that I bought from another hobbyist. The male never goes more than 6-8 inches from his little depression in the rock behind the anemone (and I'm always looking in that depression for eggs!) and the female goes a bit further away, but not much....perhaps 12 inches. She keeps every grain of sand OFF her space on the bottom of the tank, and she gets very upset if sand gets wafted back into her space by an engineer goby! She spends many hours fanning the sand and cleaning.

I'm sure they will spawn eventually...everything here that comes in pairs seems to do that in my house.

Jenn

[Doug1]

FWIW I dont think a 15g tank is big enough for 2 Tomato clowns, They get almost as big as Maroons and the territoriallity issues you are seeing now will only get worse as they grow. I would recommend at least a 55g with lotta Live Rock for protection