Clownfish Pair Behavior Change

[Zakary2003]

I have a pair of picasso ocellaris clowns. I've had them for just under a year now and they were not babies when I got them. The were paired before I bought them but the female turned on the male after it discovered my anemone, and that lasted for about 2 months. They are paired up again now. They live in my 20 gallon cube and they are hosted by a large bubble tip anemone. The past few weeks, I've noticed a change in their behavior. They have been nipping the corals around the anemone (just clove polyps and xenia, so it's actually appreciated) and picking up small rocks, sand, and inverts like snails and hermits and moving them around, usually to the area behind the anemone but sometimes to seemingly random spots. They've also gotten more territorial towards everything which has not been an issue previously. They'll attack anything that comes near, including clean up crew, the cleaner shrimp, the 6 lined wrasse, my hand, the cleaning magnet, my feeding tongs and even the thawed krill I feed the anemone. Are they preparing to spawn or something? It would be a shame if they are; I'm moving in under a week so any eggs will most likely die in transit to the new place.

 

[Uncle99]

Sounds like nest preparations.
Inside a DT, all will die.

 

[Zakary2003]

Sounds like nest preparations.
Inside a DT, all will die.

I have a smaller tank I use for fish QT. I could move the clowns and eggs to it if they lay the eggs on one of the rocks I can move. It's not cycled so I'm not sure I'll have any luck raising eggs in it, but I might give it a shot. I'm not planning on breeding clowns but it might be a fun thing to try. But right now is literally the worst timing. I'm moving next week and I have to move again in June. There's no way eggs or fry will make it through both moves.