Lightning Maroon Aggressive and not eating

George Villasenor · Feb 23, 2018

Just finished acclimating my first fish into the tank a few hours ago, two lightning maroons and dotty back. The larger maroon chases off the other one, and the other one does not retaliate. They do stay next to each other calmly when the pumps are off. I tried feeding them some pellets and they're not responding to it, tried twice with two different types of pellets, one seaweed based and one meaty. While acclimating my dropped my salinity down from 1.025ppm to 1.022ppm slowly. All the fish are from ora. Is it normal for them not to be hungry or respond to feeding? Plus both lightning maroons are usually on opposite ends of the tank. All introduced at the same time.

Wieloch89 · Feb 23, 2018

The clowns are just establishing a pecking order. The dominate clown will be the female and the submissive clown will become the male. Natural behavior. They’ll eat in time. Don’t worry about that. Also, lightening maroons are some of the most aggressive clowns to begin with so be careful of what you add in the future.

Tahoe61 · Feb 23, 2018

As long as fins are not tattered or one fish is not hiding in the corner constantly and breathing heavy they might work it out.
Very common for new clowns not to eat for a couple days. Try some flake or frozen if you need to. Avoid over feeding the tank in hopes they will eat, typically they starting eating in 3-4 days.

George Villasenor · Feb 24, 2018

Tahoe61 said:
As long as fins are not tattered or one fish is not hiding in the corner constantly and breathing heavy they might work it out.
Very common for new clowns not to eat for a couple days. Try some flake or frozen if you need to. Avoid over feeding the tank in hopes they will eat, typically they starting eating in 3-4 days.

I’ll try feeding them Sunday, since I’m going to be away from the tank for a day or two, I got these guys since I’ve read or heard from someone that they’re aggressive anemone hosts or something along those lines. It was these guys or the clarkii, luckily I got these on sale! I’ll try feeding them nori if possible, since there’s multiple fish markets near me. I do have an itch on getting a pygmy filfefish, if I do I’ll probably re-arrange the rockwork.

Tahoe61 · Feb 24, 2018

If they are juvenile and eating they benefit from multiple small feedings a day. I would try to feed them today. I doubt they will take Nori though.

davocean · Feb 24, 2018

I agree, nori may not be taken, and I also agree very often new clowns just don't eat the first few days, I've experienced this many times, not sure why clowns often do that.

Mine usually take a bit to take to NLS pellets, but once they do, they go nuts over it, and of course I vary their diet, mysis is also a big favorite.

Good luck, post pics.