Clownfish Gone Mad?

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ChiTownRomeo

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Jun 26, 2012
Messages
487
So I have had the same clowns for 6 years. Lately it's like they have went nuts! No matter what I put in the tank they attack it to death. It started with some Duncans. They attacked it CONSTANTLY! Smashed their faces into it and started grabbing the tentacles and snatching them. The 9 headed duncan died. Then I added some Candy cane corals and some birds nest coral. They did the same thing. CONSTANTLY attacking the candy canes and always picking at the birds nest. And just today a friend gave me 2 cleaner shrimp since he was moving. They attacked them over and over again. Turned the lights on tonight and both shrimp are dead. They are in a big 90 gallon and they are hosting a huge leather so i'm sure it's not a hosting issue. After all these years the clowns just might have to go. They won't allow me to put anything in with them. Any advice?
 
Are they trying to spawn? I know freshwater fish get aggressive around spawning time.
 
You could try to put them in timeout, remove them from the tank, add the new addition, then add them back in. Wouldnt hurt to move the tank around a bit too, make it seem like "new" home.

I know stuff like that can work with freshwater fish so I dont see why it wouldnt work with saltwater.
 
I re-scaped the WHOLE tank. and as soon as they see anything, they go straight for it in attack mode. And you would think the bigger female would start the madness but it's not. It's the little timid male and as soon as she sees him starting, she follows suit.
 
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Welp removed the Clowns as I couldn't take it anymore.
Bought a cute watchman goby and they destroyed it for NO reason. This is a big tank so not sure why they were so mean all of a sudden as i have had them so long. Once removed it's like the corals were so happy. everyone is out now and polyps extended.
 
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Not this time. I mean I had them for so long and they spawned so many times over the years. I don't know what happened, they just got crazy one day and decided to kill anything in the aquarium. As a precaution I even moved every coral over to the right side of the aquarium far away from them and they just cruised the aquarium looking for something to terrorize.
 
I agree about the damsels part. They are just being damsels. Every clown I have had was abusive. Hopefully things might calm down.
 
Got rid of the clowns. They were just wrecking too much havoc on my aquarium. Now everything is back opening up fully and happy. Peace has again been restored to my little ocean lol.
 
I take it you didn't read the whole post. The clowns were 6 years old. And no chart will tell you how aggressive they will be come against a certain coral lol. It didn't bother any other fish or coral. Turns out the clowns knew the duncan corals were being fed mysis shrimp so in turn they figured if they beat up the coral enough, it would expel the mysis shrimp like a vending machine.
 
I read it, it says they were atacking all animals that entered. Unless you're talking Ocelaris or Percula clownfish, Damsels will be very aggressive unless paired properly.

As far as the coral, yeah that seems weird. The vending machine theory seems funny though :lol:
 
Upon doing more research it turns out cleaner shrimp will eventually start to figure the same thing out.



Source: Tidal Gardens
 
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