Clownfish fighting, locking lips, biting gills

[Javed Aman]

Hi All,

This morning I found my two orange storm clownfish, that I had for 4 months (and were owned for 4 months by the previous owner), locking lips and biting each other's gills. To be honest, I noticed some aggression yesterday too, but it died down today after 15min. Today there were going at it for hours until I managed to catch one and put it in the sump. They really must have hated each other because both were fighting inside the net! They were purchased and juveniles and likely lived their entire lives together. But in my tank (75 gallon) they stayed together for a couple of months, then slowly drifted apart to different sides of the tank. I recently added 3 anthias (after a full quarantine) and have been feeding a lot. As expected the clownfish have gotten most of the food and so have also grown noticeably in 3 weeks. One was always about 1/3" smaller than the other and would frequently do the "shake" in front of the other. But now that they both have grown it seems like they are nearly the same size.

How long can the one clown in the sump stay there? The sump is a 20 gallon, but the fuge area is about 5 gallon. I realized that I probably have to give up one of them. Is there any other solution?

Both fish are breathing extremely heavily and is there any action I should do? I'd rather not try to catch the other and stress it out by netting it. One is about 2.25-2.5" and the other 2.5-2.75".

PS: I posted a FS for the one in the sump. If there is a solution where I won't need to get rid of it, I will remove the thread. 

[D_Robbin]

Try keeping them separate for about a week and try introducing them again. 

[flooddc]

Sounds like both has turned into females. Will fight until one died. I would recommend against trying to pair them again. If you have lighting in the sump, it can be kept in there indefinitely (but not ideal) provided you feed it regularly.  

[Javed Aman]

Would one of those breeder boxes be a better idea then?

[flooddc]

1 hour ago, Javed Aman said:

Would one of those breeder boxes be a better idea then?

would be ok, if you're trying to introduce it. if you intended to keep it in a breeder box long term, then it's not really fair to the fish.

[ReefdUp]

I gave up on a "pair" of clownfish I had for similar reasons. They fought no matter what I did, so one went to live in the sump for a very long time (big sump). 

 

I also had a vicious yellow tang (seriously... it would kill all fish in the tank, even in massive tanks).

 

So, more to try to calm the tang down, I put up mirrors in a few spots along the glass. Both the tang and clowns fought the mirror viciously for a few days - to the point I thought they'd hurt themselves.

 

After a few days, they all completely mellowed out. They would still lose their minds at the mirror a few times a day, but they became peaceful toward all the other fish. The clowns never paired again, but at least they could live in the same tank.

[Javed Aman]

2 hours ago, flooddc said:

would be ok, if you're trying to introduce it. if you intended to keep it in a breeder box long term, then it's not really fair to the fish.

 

I would use the breeder box instead of the sump. The breeder box would be there until I sell it or give it to an LFS. So that I could return to an opposite light schedule that I had before I put the fish in. 

[Javed Aman]

Also looking at the scale again. I grossly overestimated their size. Both are maybe a little bit bigger than 2". 

[Zaphodent]

Try locking one clown in the main display so they both can see each other. Release after a few days and see what happens. I locked up both of my clowns that way when they got aggressive with some of my other fish, after they got out of jail, they were much calmer. Dunno if it will work in this case though, clown on clown aggression


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[Javed Aman]

I placed the clownfish that was in the sump for a couple of days in a breeder box and back to the DT to see how the two would interact. In the sump, it was still eating. The less aggressive one (that was in the DT) seems to be the aggressor now.