pairing up mandarins

[Simcoe]

I just bought a pair of juvenile mandarin fish today. They are in a 225gal with 75gal refugium and 300lbs of live rock. Within a half hour of being in their new home they were already busy fetching dinner without much care to their environment. Until they got close to one another, their fins flared and dust came bellowing from the rocks. This happened only once so far, and now the one pursues the other now and then. Do I have two males or can this happen between a male and a female as well? What I thought was the female has lots of blue on its head and a spiked dorsal fin that I had not noticed in the LFS so this is a male; the other has more orange on its head and it has no spiked dorsal fin which we were sure it had in the store. So I don’t know if it lost it in the scrap, maybe I’m just mistaken. But what should I observe in their behaviour?
Thanks for your time to reply.

[plaz]

Pairing them is hard - the male will often bully the female or starve her out (that is what almost happened to me). My female always ran, never fought back. Don't know if that is always the case. My male has a the spike and much more orange around his cheeks. They are the Green (not the spotted). My female has more blue, but NO spiked fin on top. I've heard sometimes the spike breaks off and later grows back. Is the top fin on the "female" smooth or does it look like something could have broken off?

[Simcoe]

She/he has a lot more orange, and the dorsal fin on top is smooth. I can't tell if there ever was a spike, though I tried to pay attention to that as I got them. I haven’t noticed another scrap, more of a pursuit and playing hard to get.

[Simcoe]

I am nearly positive they are a male and female.
The male is doing very well, always eating, and moving around and can’t be bothered by anyone.
The female is being bullied by the male. She does not eat and perches motionless until the male comes around and evades him. She also has quite a bit of white discharge coming out behind her gills.

[plaz]

Are they in the 225? You may need to move the male into the 45 at least until the female gets strong (if it has plenty of rocks and copepods to support him). The male will starve out the female - that is what happened to mine (although I am still trying with the female). Apparently, the females are very timid and the aggression can make them stop eating/trying.

My female was almost dead (really - I was able to pick her up without her being asleep to move her). I moved her to a refugium and fed her huge amounts of fresh brine shrimp several times a day while growing copepods (even though some were in the refugium, she didn't have the strength to hunt). She is now in the 200 with him. She is hunting, but is still very skinny. He bullies her only in the evening now. I am debating on moving him out for a while - but I hate to risk his health. He has gotten REALLY fat and strong in the 200 (while she recuperated just a little at a time in the refugium/shrimp bar). For now, I am watching closely as she is at least eating some again.

The white/smoke may be sand they expel from the back of their head sometimes when they eat. If so, that is a very good thing - means she is at least getting a little something to eat.

Sounds like you will have to separate them at least for a while for her to survive. I would make sure she is in a place that can support her to get her stronger (like the 225 with established dsb). From everything I have read (in bits and pieces where this is actually discussed - many, many more females die from starvation than males).l

Good luck and keep us posted!