strange clown fish behivior

[Cantra]

Max and Danielle are the names of my fish.I've had them for 2 weeks. They are in a 20 gallon tank with no other fish. They are both about one and a half inches in length. Max has chased Danielle out of her shell and is now staying there but thats not the weird thing. Max has attacked her basically he doesn't hurt her but he does nip at her alot and has put a couple little nicks in her tail though earlier today i did notice that when she got to close the shell he really did attack her and grabed onto her underside. Usually Max doesn't do that and Danielle will turn back around and open her mouth and go after him and he'll flip on his side and sometimes he looks likes he's having a siezure.

Another thing I've noticed them doing is rubbing up against a the shell that max took from danielle. Its the flat part and its not rough.

Whats going on?

 

[roka64]

Ummm, you may have Max mixed up with Danielle....or they are still not sexed and one is trying to show it's dominance over the other...you may have to rename once the larger (female) has claimed her place. What kind of clowns?

 

[Tank2379]

LOL. I don't mean to laugh! Roka is correct if they are still juveniles an are the same size they are not really sexed yet as stated once the female establish her dominace over the male she will be the larger of the 2. So Max Might end being Danielle.

 

[Cantra]

They are still juveniles I believe. And I picked the names so that if say Max ends up female then his name will be changed to Maxine and Danielles to Daniel or if i named them right then they will stay the same
Roka to answer your question as to what kind they are, they are ocellaris clowns.

 

[GhostKnife]

scraping on rocks or shells in your case is a sign of disease. The fish will kind of take a glance at it and then swim at the object and lay on its side scraping across the object to try and manually remove the parasite or even an internal problem.

 

[Cantra]

they only did it the one day so thats why i was asking about that and I can't see anything wrong with them they still eat and they haven't done it again

 

[roka64]

Sometimes fish have an itch and just need to scratch....great idea oon the naming, I got a good kick out of it....very well prepared!

 

[melosu58]

As Scott said not always does scratching mean a parasite problems. Yes it can but just not always. If you see it very often and all the time then it probably is but if occasional then probably not.