My Two Black Clowns

They're chilling right now in my 8 gallon while I wait for my 34g to cycle. I got a great deal on the larger one with the more orange face for $25 at Petco on sale. The smaller more black one was $60 at my awesome LFS.

I am extremely wary of buying fish at Petco but I observed him for a long time and he seemed healthy. There's always at least 1 dead fish or highly stressed fish at my local Petco

They both swim around for about 5 minutes every 45 minutes but really each kind of hangs out hovering over 1 spot in the small tank. I hope when I move them over, they'll be a bit more active.

Right now, their names are Barry and Michelle.

Anyways, how do you tell if one is male or female other than size?

I think they're both black ocellaris, correct?

 

They change sex after being together for awhile possibly. Im not sure on that but one turns into a female i think. I think they are all born male. It might also be the opposite of what i said.

 

Yeah, I read that they all start male and then eventually one will turn female and become the larger most dominant one.

I'm just curious, if you got two fish from different places and they're both kind of young, how do you know if one has gone male or female or not?

 

Barry and Michelle hahahahaha

 

is it just me or are they looking a little skinny? maybe mine are just fat

 

They eat voraciously, maybe I will fatten them up some more.

 

They are born with out a sex and the dominant one will become female and her mate will become male the rest remain sexless. Once they become female that is it, but males can switch.

 

They are all born as males. Then, the largest one will become a female. Once a male turns into a female, it can't change back. If the female dies, then the largest male will become a female. If there are two females in a tank, one will kill the other. It also takes a little while for them to determine their sex when they are younger.

Nice pickups, by the way

 

to clear it all up

clownfish are all born male, as they grow older, some become more dominant than others, the most dominant one in a group or pairing will then change to a female, which cannot be reversed, it is not because they are "bigger" that they switch, they actually get bigger after they have already switched based on natural changes in their body. once a male turns female, they cannot go back and often times occelaris clownfish are confused for male/female and end up killing other clowns when people try to pair two females by not realizing they are females.

 

Hmm how often do you guys feed young occel juvies?

They ate last night but this morning they only took 1 or 2 tiny pellets each. I'm using Hikari Marine - S.