clownfish interaction

I have recently noticed that my two clowns have been acting in a weird playfull/aggressive manner with eachother. They swim around eachother, then kinda peck at eachother and then the smallest one (should be a boy) does this shimming near the larger clown. Is this their mating ritual?

 

If the clowns are still too small to spawn, that behavior is more about domination/submission than mating but they're on their way!

 

well the one clown is full size and the other one isn't too much smaller so maybe it's their love play?

 

The male will usually act submissive towards the female so if the small clown is the on that's shaking, you can pretty much bet that it's the male. They might not be old/big enough to spawn yet though but keep an eye on them.

 

oh ya it is the small one that's doing the shaking. It's quite interesting to see this interaction. Me and the hubby started noticing this about 2 weeks ago and when I saw the little one shaking it jogged my memory on reading that it had to do with mating. I would love baby clown but they'd probably get eaten.

 

watch them carefully I had 2 gold band maroon clowns that were full size I had them for about 2 years and the female ended up attacking the male and almost killed him and the male was shivering like you said before this happened just saying keep an eye on them.

 

oh i am. I've had cichlids breed and the male almost killed the female when she wasn't ready.

It would be a shame if it happened but I guess "divorce" happens in all worlds.

 

lol yea it took like 2 min and she had him floating at the top with no fins I had to set up a 30 gal to put him into he ended up surviving and getting all his fins back and then I put him back in with the female and they were playing like you wouldnt believe it was like she almost missed him