Hi all. I am having some trouble with my lightning maroons clowns, which seems to be a common tale!
This is my first saltwater aquarium. We set it up over the course of this month and it finished cycling last weekend, so on Sunday we put in the two clowns. Things seemed fine at first - there was one we had had our eye on since we first found our LFS who was slightly larger, and then the store ordered us a second clown which was supposed to be smaller. They are very close in size, but the first clown is a bit larger and has black fins, which is neat.
Apparently in the store they were doing fine with each other and hosting anemones. As our tank is very new, there is no chance in us having anemones - we don’t even have a light yet to prevent algae growth.
Well, the situation has devolved. They hung out a bit at first, but the black fin got shooed to a top corner and the other clown dominated the middle of the tank. We fed them a bit that night, but it was hard to feed the dominant one since it was so deep in the tank and wasn’t sure where the food was. We also weren’t sure how much to feed.
They had been doing a bit of chasing the night we put them in, but it just got so much worse all of Monday. They locked jaws, the black fin was getting chased all over and forced into corners and exhausted. At about noon he had been chased into a corner with his fins ripped to shreds and he was so tired he was sideways. I absolutely freaked out. He was just resting and eventually got back to swimming, but I ran out to petco and got a breeder net to separate them. They’re both juveniles and less than an inch long but I couldn’t watch him get beat up anymore.
We’re worried that this might have been caused from not getting enough food since the more aggressive fish is deep in the tank and hard to feed. The black fin clown has been getting plenty of food since he hangs out around the surface. I have tried sinking pellets to where the smaller clown likes to stay, putting my hand halfway down the tank to drop things in closer, and take a pipette of frozen to direct feed. The aggressive fish does not like any of this and gets really spooked when I try to bring things closer to it using long tongs or other tools, so I’m at a bit of a loss vis-à-vis target feeding.
Right now the black fin is in the breeder net and is much less stressed. He eats like a champ, most likely because he’s been around in the LFS store for longer and wasn’t shipped in. He happily eats straight from the pipette or anything at all in his area.
So there is my concern - the smaller clown is much more aggressive, but way harder to feed, and will most likely be harder to get big to become female. The larger clown is definitely less aggressive but he eats very well and will most likely grow faster. Should I keep the smaller clown in the breeder net to feed it more directly until it figures out where food comes from and let the other out? If the other clown gets larger, will their fights for dominance become worse? I feel like the more aggressive one should be out in the main tank declaring its territory, but if it can’t eat very much it’s not going to grow bigger than the other. Tonight we made sure they both got all they could eat, but it definitely made more waste than I am comfortable doing daily. We picked up a clear breeder box so they can actually see each other, which will be set up tomorrow.
From research after these issues arose, it sounds like I should have waited for one clown to become large before getting the second, but I didn’t know. Does anyone have any recommendations on quelling maroon unrest while both are juveniles? They’re both beautiful and the only fish we want to keep in the tank, I really don’t want to take either one back to the store.
Top fish is the black finned clown. Bottom is the lighter more aggressive clown. Its middle band is heart shaped... you’d think it would be nicer!
This is my first saltwater aquarium. We set it up over the course of this month and it finished cycling last weekend, so on Sunday we put in the two clowns. Things seemed fine at first - there was one we had had our eye on since we first found our LFS who was slightly larger, and then the store ordered us a second clown which was supposed to be smaller. They are very close in size, but the first clown is a bit larger and has black fins, which is neat.
Apparently in the store they were doing fine with each other and hosting anemones. As our tank is very new, there is no chance in us having anemones - we don’t even have a light yet to prevent algae growth.
Well, the situation has devolved. They hung out a bit at first, but the black fin got shooed to a top corner and the other clown dominated the middle of the tank. We fed them a bit that night, but it was hard to feed the dominant one since it was so deep in the tank and wasn’t sure where the food was. We also weren’t sure how much to feed.
They had been doing a bit of chasing the night we put them in, but it just got so much worse all of Monday. They locked jaws, the black fin was getting chased all over and forced into corners and exhausted. At about noon he had been chased into a corner with his fins ripped to shreds and he was so tired he was sideways. I absolutely freaked out. He was just resting and eventually got back to swimming, but I ran out to petco and got a breeder net to separate them. They’re both juveniles and less than an inch long but I couldn’t watch him get beat up anymore.
We’re worried that this might have been caused from not getting enough food since the more aggressive fish is deep in the tank and hard to feed. The black fin clown has been getting plenty of food since he hangs out around the surface. I have tried sinking pellets to where the smaller clown likes to stay, putting my hand halfway down the tank to drop things in closer, and take a pipette of frozen to direct feed. The aggressive fish does not like any of this and gets really spooked when I try to bring things closer to it using long tongs or other tools, so I’m at a bit of a loss vis-à-vis target feeding.
Right now the black fin is in the breeder net and is much less stressed. He eats like a champ, most likely because he’s been around in the LFS store for longer and wasn’t shipped in. He happily eats straight from the pipette or anything at all in his area.
So there is my concern - the smaller clown is much more aggressive, but way harder to feed, and will most likely be harder to get big to become female. The larger clown is definitely less aggressive but he eats very well and will most likely grow faster. Should I keep the smaller clown in the breeder net to feed it more directly until it figures out where food comes from and let the other out? If the other clown gets larger, will their fights for dominance become worse? I feel like the more aggressive one should be out in the main tank declaring its territory, but if it can’t eat very much it’s not going to grow bigger than the other. Tonight we made sure they both got all they could eat, but it definitely made more waste than I am comfortable doing daily. We picked up a clear breeder box so they can actually see each other, which will be set up tomorrow.
From research after these issues arose, it sounds like I should have waited for one clown to become large before getting the second, but I didn’t know. Does anyone have any recommendations on quelling maroon unrest while both are juveniles? They’re both beautiful and the only fish we want to keep in the tank, I really don’t want to take either one back to the store.
Top fish is the black finned clown. Bottom is the lighter more aggressive clown. Its middle band is heart shaped... you’d think it would be nicer!