shivering clownfish

whenever my two ocellaris clownfish get stressed or nervous they shiver and spaz out for a second or two is this normal?

 

How old are they. This "shivering" description sounds very much like their mating dance. Is one substantially larger than the other? How long have they been together?

 

mine do this as well. I had assumed it was part of pairing. The male almost exclusively does it (though I have caught the female doing it) and it's always towards the other fish. I had initially assumed it was part of showing submissiveness to the other fish.

 

They are fairly young and on IS signifigantly larger than the other why are they doing this?

 

If they have been together for a bit, one of them would have turned into a female and would have become substantially larger. A shivering "dance" is a just that....a pre-cursor to the mating ritual.

However, if they've only been together for a short time, it's hard to say. Clownfish are just that.....clowns!!! ;D

 

It just clownfish communication. They all do it to some degree. The smaller male usually does it more, showing the female he is submissive, which he must be otherwise she would most likely kill him.

The larger female may do it as well but not as often or for the same reason. Sometimes she needs to remind the male who's boss.

 

Does that mean a fresh batch of CUTE CLOWNFISH BABIES!!!!!!

 

I bought them together and they both haven't been apart since then they've been in my tank for about a month.

 

Typically the female has to be around the age of 2 years and 2 inches in size.

The male can be much younger.

There are several threads currently on this forum regarding the breeding and rearing of the fry. Members Tropical Addict, Pickle and doylef4i all have excellent threads related to this topic.