2 clows fighing. Remove which one?

[litebrite]

Clowns are 1" long. Tank is 150 gallon, 300 lbs of rock and sand.

The odd thing is the injured passive clown (missing a complete fin and has bite markes) is now being attacked by the goby and 1 cleaner shrimp (not cleaned but attacked). Is this because it is injured?

I wonder if the aggressive clown is aggressive or if the passive clown is antaganizing the clown to be aggressive by swimming over its rock?

I like the passive one because it swims all over. They both leave all the other fish alown. Do you think the passive one is a trouble maker? It doesn't fight back either and doesn't swim away. I separated them for now in to different tanks.

Troble maker or victim? Which one should I keep? Thank you.

 

[melosu58]

If you get a pair of clowns you need to have a size difference. One small and one big. If they are the same size then they will fight to the death. You`ll need to get rid of one and get a bigger one. If they are fighting alot turn out the light for a few hours. JME

 

[litebrite]

I might have a less inteligent clown fish. It swims in to everyones business and gets picked on by even shrimps. My larger shrimp jumped on it and started jamming it two front white spears at it with frustrated anger like a jack hammer.

On the other hand the aggressive clown is in a new tank with other fish including aggressive damsels and no one is bothering it or visa versa. It really appears that the non aggressive clown is swimming all over everyones private rocks tresspassing. That's why it was my favorate because it swims everywhere non stop.

I am starting to wonder if the clown is causing it's own trouble. Even in QT the wrasse didn't want to be in the same tank, but worked fine with the more aggressive clown.

Probably got my answer. But I'm giving the non aggressive clown more time to see if things work out just because he is a really fun fish to watch. I don't think the non aggressive clown is going to win any awards for being smart. But hes goofy.

 

[litebrite]

Update

Update. The clown was taking a beating from the cleaner shrimps and in return trying to bite off their antenna. So I took this passive clown and put it in the tank where the aggressive clown was.

At the same time I took the aggressive clown and moved it to the other tank. The aggressive clown went right to the cleaner shirmp and they left it alone.

The passive clown in the new tank with completely other fish was attacked about 10 seconds after being introduced. This was the same tank the more aggressive clown was part of the gang.

Very strange. Every single creature wants to attack this clown fish. I have no idea why. But they want it dead. So for now the passive clown will have to be in a tank by its self. It must be doing some kind of twitch egging on a fight or something. I don't speak fish so I can't see it. The aggressive clown is now palling out in the new tank just fine.

I wonder if I should try and get another clown to put with the aggressive one now that I know the problem was with the passive one and its out of the tank now. And like you said maybe one of another size.

 

[MommaFishels]

That is weird that everyone wants to kill him even cleaner shrimp. LOL.

If you get another one, get one smaller or larger than the agressive one. The larger one will turn into the female and the smaller fish will be the male. It might take them a couple of days to get aquainted with each other but should be fine.

 

[litebrite]

Wow. I never knew that! Definitely have to get another one now. Can I do a differnt breed or do they need to both be the same type of clown for this to work?

 

[MommaFishels]

I believe they can be a different breed but someone may chime in and tell us different. Yeah, when I purchased my 2 clowns, they were not mated pairs so I got a large and a small one. They get along great and I'll tell you they are one of my favorite fish.