Clown fish can be very territorial and can take up as much as 10‘ x 10‘ on a reef in the wild but I think it is normal behavior and it happens to me as well. As far as managing it try feeding on the other side of the tank.I've been reading through posts about various clownfish issues and haven't quite found one that matches my concerns, so...
I have a clownfish pair in my 20g nano — were sold to me very young as regular orange ocellaris, but have since matured to look like some form of black and white clownfish. I also have a tailspot blenny in my tank that went in first. The clowns arrived a week after the blenny and immediately went to him, and these three have been good together from day one — the female clown even pals around w/the blenny sometimes and tries to copy his rock-nipping behavior, which I find funny and endearing.
About a couple months ago, the female clown began nipping at my hand when I went to add their morning food — it’s very sporadic, and often I’ll go weeks w/o it happening and then one day, bam. I put Masstick on the tank wall every morning, and mostly she just waits until it’s stuck and I take my hand out, but sometimes she goes nuts as I’m sticking it down. So I just began religiously wearing gloves when I put the food in, and it doesn’t bother me much if it happens. This behavior appeared to be food related, like she would get into these feeding frenzies. But then I noticed her do it once or twice when I had my hand in gluing a frag down close to where she was swimming, so that kinda blows the feeding theory.
Anyway, wearing gloves resolved it on my end, but even though it’s very sporadic, when she does it she goes all in with flips. This morning she did it and very nearly flipped right out of the tank. So now THAT is my biggest concern.
My Q is: Is there anything I can do to manage this behavior better?
I haven’t seen pure aggression from her. She and the littler guy have paired now and are nearly inseparable — once in a while I’ll notice her nip at him and he does the funny shimmy to her, or he turns up with a small tear in a fin that heals w/in a day, but I’ve never seen true knock-down drag-out worrisome aggression. She will also try to push the others away from the food, but the blenny will just persistently push his way back in and she then defers to him, while the male clown hangs behind and catches all the food that floats off as the other two go at the masstick. All are eating well and have a rhythm. I mainly want to ensure that if she gets overly excited when I put food in the tank, she won’t flip herself right out onto the floor. I have to take the lid off to put my hand in to stick this particular food on the glass, and it's honestly feels like it's only a matter of time if I go on the way things are now.
