How long do clowns fight before switching gender?

[Wayne]

Does anyone know roughly how long two occ clowns will fight before they determine gender? I just added another occ clown and its pretty clear which one is the more dominatant one. Just wondering how long the fighting will go on?

Also both of there genders are unknown at this time, they are both quite young and equal in size... I haven't seen them lock jaws yet, but is there any other way to tell?

[dsaundry]

Could go on for a few days or weeks, so long as there is lots of rock for the other one to hide, however, it may not happen. They may fight to the death. Just watch them as best as you can and usually they will aclimate to each other.

[Myka]

It can go on for months or days. Hard to say. Size difference between them will help shorten the time.

[Wayne]

Hum well after an hour the aggression has died down a little bit... The aggressor throws a jab in every few seconds still and the other one is just taking it. It was certainly a very scary hour, there was times the aggressor had is entire mouth biting the body of the other one

But like you guys say I can expect this behaviour for few more weeks possibly?

[Myka]

Ya, any chance you could trade the new guy for a bigger/smaller one? Introducing a second clown to an established clown you will get way more aggression than introducing them at the same time. Add to that they are both the same size...you're in for a battle.

[Wayne]

Originally Posted by Myka

Ya, any chance you could trade the new guy for a bigger/smaller one? Introducing a second clown to an established clown you will get way more aggression than introducing them at the same time. Add to that they are both the same size...you're in for a battle.

I introduced them both to a 20G tank with some live rock. If the agression doesn't get better in the next few hours I will seperate them and get a smaller one

Thanks everyone for the help so far