peculiar clown behavior

[sduerk]

My three percula clowns occassionally exhibit a strange behavior. First of all the largest of the three occassionally stirs the sand up with his tail. It's hilarious! Typically this occurs after I have done some maintenance.
But the reason for this post is they will sometimes act as is they are having seizures. They will stop swimming and begin twitching. Normally this occurs as they swim up to one of the other fish. Any ideas? They did this the first time I brought them home and I about had a heart attack.

 

[ebeckels]

any spots on them or anything like that?

 

[sduerk]

No they have also been doing this since I got them dec 15th. It is not a regular thing so I don't think that they are sick.

 

[hondo]

The seizure thing is part of mating and establishing dominance. Perfectly normal behavior between two clownfish. I had a false perc and a tomato clown in the same tank and whenever the larger tomato came close to the smaller false perc the perc would exhibit this behavior. As for digging in the sand my false perc does this occasional, not sure why.

 

[cgsimison]

I have observed both the shaking and digging behavoirs in my GS Maroon and Tomato, but also with my Yellowtail Blue damsel's and my Talbot's damsels (yes, I am a damsel/clown freak-it comes from a previous love of south African cichlids!) Anyhow, it is a mating/territory/dominance thing...pick one depending on the situation. By the way, if you had 2 boy damsels, one would turn into a girl. How is that for cool!

 

[nasotang00]

Yes, the largest is always the female. I have never heard of them laying their eggs in the sand or cc. they mostly attach the to the side or underbelly of rock. As for the shaking, mine do this all the time. always the male (the smaller one) I believe also that it is part of the mating process. I only have percs though. it may be different with other clowns.