Im confused

[littlefoxx]

I cant get a picture right now cause my male clarkii is camera shy, but Im 99% sure my stripped damsel killed his female and is trying to take her place. He keeps hovering over the male clown. My female gas been MIA for a few days now. Anyone seen anything like that?

 

[Thalasstronaut]

No personal experience, but damsels and clowns belong to the same family, I believe. And some clowns will cross species lines in pairing, I wonder how far up the family tree that extends. At least in the sense that the damsel would see a clown as a like fish and behave as it would towards one of its own species.

 

[littlefoxx]

No personal experience, but damsels and clowns belong to the same family, I believe. And some clowns will cross species lines in pairing, I wonder how far up the family tree that extends. At least in the sense that the damsel would see a clown as a like fish and behave as it would towards one of its own species.

Yeah I knew they were both damsels but this is the first time Ive had a damsel and a clarkii look very similar before. Never kept clarkiis but Im wondering if because they are so close my damsel took her out and is trying to claim the male? Stripe (the damsel) was slightly larger than my female clarkii.

 

[KrisReef]

Interesting.

 

[Cheese Griller]

I would highly doubt that the damsel is trying to pair with the Clarkii, since striped damsels do not exhibit monogamous pairing, rather one male can have multiple females in his territory that will lay eggs for him. So if the damsel was a female, she would not have any reservations about sharing a mate within his territory.

The damsel’s behavior now could be a dominance display, but it’s pretty hard to tell without a video.

 

[littlefoxx]

I would highly doubt that the damsel is trying to pair with the Clarkii, since striped damsels do not exhibit monogamous pairing, rather one male can have multiple females in his territory that will lay eggs for him. So if the damsel was a female, she would not have any reservations about sharing a mate within his territory.

The damsel’s behavior now could be a dominance display, but it’s pretty hard to tell without a video.

Ill try to get a video. The damsel is acting weird as hell with him. Also I swear its gotten noticeably bigger since it killed my female clarkii

 

[Cheese Griller]

Ill try to get a video. The damsel is acting weird as hell with him. Also I swear its gotten noticeably bigger since it killed my female clarkii

It getting larger is totally understandable as now it has competition of a similar size in the tank that requires it to bulk up to be larger than (and therefore more dominant). At this point it’s probably dominance, but a video will help solidify my opinion!

 

[littlefoxx]

@Cheese Griller

Not the best video since it was the eels feeding time a few minutes ago and they create a sand storm when they get excited lol but here is a video of the male clown and damsel. They do this weird behavior all over the tank

 

[Cheese Griller]

@Cheese Griller

Not the best video since it was the eels feeding time a few minutes ago and they create a sand storm when they get excited lol but here is a video of the male clown and damsel. They do this weird behavior all over the tank

Looks perfectly normal to me- the damsel just seems to want to swim with the clown, which makes sense since they are in the presence of larger fish (the eels.) at the end when the clown rises and the damsel turns perpendicular to it, that’s just the damsel’s way of showing it’s larger and therefore more dominant.

 

[littlefoxx]

Looks perfectly normal to me- the damsel just seems to want to swim with the clown, which makes sense since they are in the presence of larger fish (the eels.) at the end when the clown rises and the damsel turns perpendicular to it, that’s just the damsel’s way of showing it’s larger and therefore more dominant.

Huh. Do you think the damsel killed my female clown? They were about the same size

 

[Cheese Griller]

Huh. Do you think the damsel killed my female clown? They were about the same size

I would say that is probably the most likely scenario, especially if the damsel and clown were the same size since the damsel would want to be the largest and most dominant. Now it's just exerting said dominance over the male.