Clown fish twitching to pair or mate?

One fish swims to the right top corner of my tank and swims downwards and twitches. This occurs when the tank light is on or off, and also during the night when there is no light on (doesnt see its reflection). The other fish occasionally nips and rarely twitches, about 1/2 inch bigger and both were introduced the same time last week from different sources. Aside from that, they seem to get along well and swim around together. I understand that the twitching could be a form of what could possibly be the male bc he is smaller showing the female that he is being submissive and is not dominant. However, how do I know its a form of submission as opposed to the twitching seen in mating as well? Cant distinguish the two, and need help!

Thanks in Advance.

 

Well you'll know soon enough. That's a hard one I've never thought of that or read anything on submission with pairs. Best of Luck.

 

Funny you should mention twitching! While observing my two the last few days I noticed one of them doing the same.I've never seen a fish do that before! I introduced my pair at the same time also and they're still very young at only 1 3/4". There's no significant size difference between the two but one is definitely more dominant than the other.

This doesn't help any but it was cool to have shared the observation.On a side note, I don't have anything for them to host either.

 

Clownfish will pair up, mate bu twitching...or it looks like they are having a seizure..haha

Its a good thing.

 

seizures are a good thing for clownfish ha ha

 

And the female is usually bigger and definitely more dominant.

 

Weird behavior

I got my first clown on Wednesday, it was in a tank with one other clown. The clown from Wed (Nemo) stayed in the corner and chased his reflection 24x7, even during feeding time he would eat the chase eat then chase. I thought maybe he was lonely since I separated him from the other clown. When I went to the LFS for something else the other clown was still there. I decided to buy him/her and they put him on hold for me. I picked Skittles up on Sunday and after acclimating to the tank popped him/her in. They instantly swam to each other and were twitching and swimming weird, but next to each other. Then it looked like Nemo (the first clown) bit the other clown Skittles! Now they seem to both be chasing their reflections again (but next to each other). No one at the LFS store told me about the sizing thing and they are pretty close in size (Nemo is slightly bigger than Skittles). They are very small maybe an inch to 1.5 inches. I thought since they were tankmates before they would have been fine together.

Are they too small for mating, and this is some kind of dominance thing? Should I separate them if they do start fighting? Sorry to thread jack, but this seems like the exact thing I am seeing.

 

Clownfish tend to start spawing around 2 -2.5 years of age if all other conditions are right.
The shaking you are seeing is just clownfish communication and showing dominance and submission, both females and male clownfish do it, although males tend to do it more.
It is better to start with one clownfish larger than the other but that is just a general rule. If you start to see some bullying try to rearrange the rock work to establish new territories.
A clownfish being bullied will hide, swim in the corner near the surface, eat very little if at all and may show signs of physical bullying like torn fins. If left unchecked the bullied fish usually dies of infections resulting from increased stress levels IME.

 

Thanks for the info! Bad LFS, bad (rubs face in stain on carpet).. I should google things before I go there lol

 

some females seem to want to esablish more dominance then others, it can be minor as swimming into each other and "Facing off" all the up to biting the fins and ripping pieces off, either way if you have a good system the clown should be fine. depending on your lighting i would get a 5 head torch coral and try to get them to host. twitching is a GOOD sign.