Aggressive Clown Help

[Brian Kennedy]

My two black and white ocellaris clowns are the only survivors from my tank crash last year and were my very first saltwater fish. They’ve had almost exclusive run of the new 120g since May. A couple months ago I converted and added two black mollies to verify the new tank was clean. I then QT’d and added two PJ cardinals and a coris wrasse. The clowns assaulted the wrasse, but that only lasted for a day resulting in one bite mark in the wrasse. Tuesday evening I added a QT’d yellow eye kole tang and thats whereThings got bad. Well, I come home from work yesterday expecting everyone to be playing nice, but unfortunately the clowns had beaten the you know what out of the kole. Such that I’m not sure he’ll make it. He’s got probably 6 to 10 deep bite marks on each side and a piece of missing dorsal fin. Not to mention visibly stressed. I tore the tank apart trying to catch whichever I could and after nearly 2 hours I was able to catch the clowns and banished them to the sump.

Do I rehome the clowns, or allow the tang to heal and then reintroduce the clowns? I was aware of tang aggression, but this took me by surprise.

 

[ahiggins]

Usually you can banish them for a month or so and reintroduce after everything else has had time to heal/claim territory. That being said, I’ve never reintroduced a pair only a single clown. So in practice it may be different than theory. Good luck

 

[Waterislife]

Really depends how much you like those clowns in my experience fish are fish and will always be what they are even removed and put back in but you never know but be ready to tear the tank apart again to remove them if necessary

 

[Fishy212]

I think a lot of it has to do with when and how new fish are introduced to the tank.

are they captive or wild? I have captive bred clowns and they are so peaceful towards fish, inverts and actually swim into my hands when I am doing maintenance.

Examples, such as introducing the fish after the lights are down, after feeding so the OG fish are not asaggressive.

I have seen where people would put an acrylic see through box within the display tank to make sure the new fish see and get used to current inhabitants before introducing them.

You could let the tang heal up and establish some territory before adding them back, but it may be for nothing at this point.

good luck!!!

 

[Peace River]

Clowns are awesome and can be mean - that is the dilemma that many of us have faced at some point. Hierarchy and the related aggression is wired into the core of who they are as fish so do you want to build the tank around this pair who has already proven to be overly aggressive or do you want to move on? It is not an easy choice. There are things that you can do (a few are listed in the other posts above) to reduce the chance of a recurrence, but there is the possibility that it will happen again. Good luck with whatever you choose!

 

[Brian Kennedy]

Maybe it’s time to convince the wife that a clown/Nem tank is necessary!

if I decide to reintroduce, how much time should I wait? I saw one month referenced above.

 

[Brian Kennedy]

Clowns are awesome and can be mean - that is the dilemma that many of us have faced at some point. Hierarchy and the related aggression is wired into the core of who they are as fish so do you want to build the tank around this pair who has already proven to be overly aggressive or do you want to move on? It is not an easy choice. There are things that you can do (a few are listed in the other posts above) to reduce the chance of a recurrence, but there is the possibility that it will happen again. Good luck with whatever you choose!

They were the first saltwater fish I purchased and I do like them a lot. They survived my initial tank apocalypse However I do not like their murderous attitudes. Ironically, they’ve never even tried to bite me.

 

[Peace River]

They were the first saltwater fish I purchased and I do like them a lot. They survived my initial tank apocalypse However I do not like their murderous attitudes. Ironically, they’ve never even tried to bite me.

Clowns have been known to fixate on things - it can be a hand, another fish, a shrimp, a rock, a coral, etc. so the behavior isn't surprising. I like your idea about another tank - a nano tank would make a good home. I would encourage you to make sure that the tank has stabilized before adding the anemone (sometimes it can take six months to a year before the tank has worked through the "uglies" phase).