can a male clown turn female if...

[Jason13]

...there is already a female in the tank?

37gallon cube, 3 different ocellaris.

One was big and the female of a mated pair.
One was added when her man died.
One was added a week after that just for fun.

The bigger female caught both of the other ones attention for a couple weeks. But now for a month or a bit more, she does her thing and the 2nd fish is getting bullied by the 3rd. I rarely see them interact with the female.

Could they pair up, leaving the original female out?

 

[William Lutman]

Yes they change, yes there will only be one male, if he dies, a female will change sex

 

[rowdie]

Yes they change, yes there will only be one male, if he dies, a female will change sex

This is backwards, there is only 1 female and if it dies the most dominant male will become female.

 

[superfish]

clowns can only change from juvenile to adult male, then from male to female. there is no way back.
if there are two female in the same tank, in most cases they will try to kill each other until one of them die.
same thing happens to the male.
so for your case, the bigger one is a female for sure. the other two fish will fight to be the male.
but if the smaller two are both adult male already, you may have a problem then.

 

[prp076]

There is only one female, but there is also only one mated male. The other two are fighting to see which one gets to have the fun. He will grow slightly bigger then the other male. If you female dies then the mating male becomes female and the one male that lost get to become the mating male.


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