Mating behaviour of clown loaches

[WILDCARD]

Finally got 3 clown loaches to settle in my tank without dying after only a few weeks
However, over the past few days one of the clowns has been acting, emm, "oddly".
As in its colour changes from normal black and pale yellow stripe to deep black and bright orange stripe. Its fins become very "erect", for want of a better expression, and suddenly becomes very aggressive towards the other two clowns. This lasts about 15 - 20 minutes at the most and them they all settle down again

Anyone any clues? Is this natural or is it the beginnings of some kind of mating type ritual ? Or is he just playing silly bu****s !!

Clowns are 3" long living in a 200l tank with lots of hiding places.

 

[LoachLover]

To me it sounds like they are just establishing a pecking order. Epescially since clowns don't breed until they are about 12" long.

 

[Teelie]

And besides which it's almost impossible to get them to breed in the aquarium to begin with.

 

[Yenko]

They're just fighting over territory.

 

[Captain Canuck]

That is just clowns being clowns.

 

[WILDCARD]

/ wheres the DOH smillie /

Breeding, how stupid of me!

A second clown started behaving in the same way and last night all hell broke loose. It was like the 'rumble in the jungle', clown loach stylee. Gravel flying, fishing darting everywhere trying to avoid the melee, chaos. I had to put my hand in the tank to break them up after about 15 minutes of constant fighting.
Those spikes they have under each eye look lethal, I'm sure one of them is going to die.
They started again this morning about 30 seconds after the light came on! Just had to leave them to it.
Hope they sort this out, don't need another stramash like last night.

Any suggestions to get them to stop?

 

[Puffer_freak]

Heres the DOH smily:



no, you've just got to let them get on with it, once they have worked out the pecking order, the tank will be peaceful!

 

[LoachLover]

And besides which it's almost impossible to get them to breed in the aquarium to begin with.

That too