- Joined
- May 18, 2009
- Messages
- 325
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Hi All,
This morning I found my two orange storm clownfish, that I had for 4 months (and were owned for 4 months by the previous owner), locking lips and biting each other's gills. To be honest, I noticed some aggression yesterday too, but it died down today after 15min. Today there were going at it for hours until I managed to catch one and put it in the sump. They really must have hated each other because both were fighting inside the net! They were purchased and juveniles and likely lived their entire lives together. But in my tank (75 gallon) they stayed together for a couple of months, then slowly drifted apart to different sides of the tank. I recently added 3 anthias (after a full quarantine) and have been feeding a lot. As expected the clownfish have gotten most of the food and so have also grown noticeably in 3 weeks. One was always about 1/3" smaller than the other and would frequently do the "shake" in front of the other. But now that they both have grown it seems like they are nearly the same size.
How long can the one clown in the sump stay there? The sump is a 20 gallon, but the fuge area is about 5 gallon. I realized that I probably have to give up one of them. Is there any other solution?
Both fish are breathing extremely heavily and is there any action I should do? I'd rather not try to catch the other and stress it out by netting it.
This morning I found my two orange storm clownfish, that I had for 4 months (and were owned for 4 months by the previous owner), locking lips and biting each other's gills. To be honest, I noticed some aggression yesterday too, but it died down today after 15min. Today there were going at it for hours until I managed to catch one and put it in the sump. They really must have hated each other because both were fighting inside the net! They were purchased and juveniles and likely lived their entire lives together. But in my tank (75 gallon) they stayed together for a couple of months, then slowly drifted apart to different sides of the tank. I recently added 3 anthias (after a full quarantine) and have been feeding a lot. As expected the clownfish have gotten most of the food and so have also grown noticeably in 3 weeks. One was always about 1/3" smaller than the other and would frequently do the "shake" in front of the other. But now that they both have grown it seems like they are nearly the same size.
How long can the one clown in the sump stay there? The sump is a 20 gallon, but the fuge area is about 5 gallon. I realized that I probably have to give up one of them. Is there any other solution?
Both fish are breathing extremely heavily and is there any action I should do? I'd rather not try to catch the other and stress it out by netting it.