Clownfish fighting during water change

[Zack]

Every time I do a water change and lift the hood off of the tank, my two false percs start fighting like crazy. Today they were locking jaws and chasing after each other. As soon as I was done and turned the lights back on they are both back in their anemone and playing around as usual. Occasionally the bigger of the two will swim next to the small one and the small one will quiver. The two host the same anemone and during the night they sleep next to each other. Whats weird is the fact that they get aggressive EVERY time I take the hood off and the light from the room enters the tank. Should I be worried? Currently they are in a 10 gallon tank, however next semester when I'm eligible for a apt they will be moving into a 30. They were both about .8" when I got them and were together at the store's tank and now the bigger one is 1.1" from head to tail and the other is .9"

[Zack]

Ok so did some tests and heres what happening.

Lights on in tank and on in room: Peaceful
Lights off in tank and on in room: Fighting
Lights on in tank and off in room: Peaceful
Lights of in tank and off in room: Both cuddle up in anemone (I guess they think its nightime?)

[ismvel]

Sounds like your typical dysfunctional couple :)

[Zack]

Pretty normal between juvies? At least while there sorting out all the gender issues?

And it took me a second to get that one lol :applause:

[jeittreim]

maybe you will get lucky when they calm down gender wise and reproduce :-)

[Zack]

Does anyone have a list of normal behaviors and what the signs are that one is becoming female?

[jeittreim]

The only sign I had on my breeding pair was when one of them suddenly got really large while the other one stayed small. The larger of the two will be the female.

[Zack]

How long did they take to pair and how big were they when you got them?

[jeittreim]

I got them when they were both just over 1/2" and I had them almost a year and a half before I noticed a size difference. 6 months later, one was almost 2 1/2" while the other was about half that size and they laid their first clutch of eggs below the bubble-tip shortly there after. Didn't have any luck getting the eggs to hatch though, I didn't have my breeder tank setup and the rest of my tank was hostile to say the least.

[Zack]

Tank bred ocellaris?

[jeittreim]

Yup :-) I was shocked when it happened, my experience has always been breeding freshwater sevrums and the like, never had any marine fish breed on me. too bad it didn't work out.