I was thinking the same thing. I should make a poll about it.
Mine is black and she's not aggressive. Bossy, but not aggressive.
I have a black one and although the previous owner dubbed her a fish killer. She didn’t go after the lawnmower blenny I added or hasn’t turned on me or the other OGs in the tank.......... yet
That's funny, I named my two Bonnie and Clyde as well. The first Clyde managed to suicide and Bonnie picked on him a lot but she really got depressed after he was gone. When I moved her to the new bigger tank I got a new 'Clyde' and she seems to like him a lot better. She's also stopped nipping my hand...for the moment. We'll see how it goes.
That’s was supposed to say it’s always the “female” in these stories lolbut it seems like it’s usually always the denial in these stories
OMG! Wow! I love how you told that story! Sorry about your fish though.Hello everyone!
I’d like you all to meet Luxo, the most evil clownfish out there!
It started out with two tiny ocellaris clownfish, no larger than an inch. They quickly made a nice home in the quarantine tank, and even formed a close pair inside their small PVC pipe. Things seemed to be going great with them! Luxo would occasionally kick Nemo out then invite him back in, which was quite normal in pairing behavior from what I could tell.
Fast forward a few weeks, and they were the first two fish in my display tank (at least in a very long time)! They did typical clownfish stuff—hosted my torch coral to death, picked on the inverts, and so on. At this point, something became noticeably off about Luxo. She stuck very close to her torch (my second torch, that is…
Nemo (top) and a tiny Luxo (bottom) in their early days.
A few months later, enter Eve, the Aurora goby. At the introduction of this fish, something snapped inside Luxo, and she decided to harass Nemo to death. It was upsetting, but definitely something that happens from time to time in clown pairs. That was barely the bad part. I could not even attempt to clean the algae at this point. The little bugger would literally jump out of the water just to bite my hand! There were instances in which she’d even draw blood! A one-inch fish leaving marks!! It was here that I knew I had a mean-a** fish.
Over three months later I tested my fish luck again, and added a royal gramma. Luxo actually handled this quite well! The gramma, named Zurg, was able to hold its own and evade the clownfish. The two hung out often, with few signs of aggression. Of course, my hand was still the primary victim to the “devilfish”.
Well fast forward a little while longer, and I chose to round off the stocking with a firefish. Luxo seemed well behaved at this point, and only cared about its “anemone” (a ticked off torch). But things went swimmingly—for a bit. Luxo snapped, and one night I noticed her chasing around the poor firefish. The firefish was faster though. Then the firefish disappeared. At first I checked the sump, then the floor, then concluded that it was finished off. It sucked, but I suppose I’d have to stick with three happy fish. Or two…
After coming back from a weekend trip, I noticed the obvious absence of my royal gramma. Instead, there was a fat clownfish proudly swimming across its tank, surveying its whole territory. It no longer hosted the torch too much. The world was its torch coral! At the time, I didn’t really believe that the rapid deaths of my firefish and royal gramma were the clown’s fault. In fact, I assumed that once more, there was a disease outbreak. Thus, I netted an angry Luxo and stuck her into a quarantine tank. The goby was too difficult to catch, and at this point I was making plans to upgrade my tank.
Over a month later, nothing showed up on the goby, and I grew suspicious that Luxo was the actual disease within the tank…
These suspicions grew when I upgraded the tank, and was finally able to catch the goby and put her into the quarantine tank with Luxo. Not within two hours, I checked in on the fish and found Luxo angrily swimming around, with a completely shredded up goby. My initial reaction was “oh, God, she did it again,” and at this point knew that she murdered every other fish, all behind my back. But this time, I got her!! Fortunately, the goby was still alive, though definitely shaken up. I decided to skip quarantining the goby and gave her a nice home in the 40 breeder. Sadly, she now has a very screwed up tail with no signs of healing.
So, I believe I learned my lesson to never trust a clownfish. Or, at least this one. At the moment, I have no intention of moving Luxo into the larger tank, but I also can’t get rid of her. It’s weird—as evil as she is, she’s still my little clownfish friend! After all, she is my profile pic!! So for now, it’s fishy jail for Luxo! Bad clownfish, bad!!
I hope you enjoyed my little story, and I hope I taught a valuable lesson to anyone who thinks clownfish are fun, friendly, and cute. Spoiler alert, they ain’t…
I just rehomed my breeding pair of midnight clowns (black ocellaris) because they suddenly declared thunderdome on the tank.
I'm sorry to hear of your problems. You are not alone. I have a clownfish pair that have been banished to my 30 gal sump/refugium. They bullied every other fish in the tank. Chasing them and not allowing other fish to eat. I didn't want to get rid of them but also didn't want them terrorizing the tank. They seem happy now but the male still bites me every time I clean the tank. Hello everyone!
I’d like you all to meet Luxo, the most evil clownfish out there!
It started out with two tiny ocellaris clownfish, no larger than an inch. They quickly made a nice home in the quarantine tank, and even formed a close pair inside their small PVC pipe. Things seemed to be going great with them! Luxo would occasionally kick Nemo out then invite him back in, which was quite normal in pairing behavior from what I could tell.
Fast forward a few weeks, and they were the first two fish in my display tank (at least in a very long time)! They did typical clownfish stuff—hosted my torch coral to death, picked on the inverts, and so on. At this point, something became noticeably off about Luxo. She stuck very close to her torch (my second torch, that is…
Nemo (top) and a tiny Luxo (bottom) in their early days.
A few months later, enter Eve, the Aurora goby. At the introduction of this fish, something snapped inside Luxo, and she decided to harass Nemo to death. It was upsetting, but definitely something that happens from time to time in clown pairs. That was barely the bad part. I could not even attempt to clean the algae at this point. The little bugger would literally jump out of the water just to bite my hand! There were instances in which she’d even draw blood! A one-inch fish leaving marks!! It was here that I knew I had a mean-a** fish.
Over three months later I tested my fish luck again, and added a royal gramma. Luxo actually handled this quite well! The gramma, named Zurg, was able to hold its own and evade the clownfish. The two hung out often, with few signs of aggression. Of course, my hand was still the primary victim to the “devilfish”.
Well fast forward a little while longer, and I chose to round off the stocking with a firefish. Luxo seemed well behaved at this point, and only cared about its “anemone” (a ticked off torch). But things went swimmingly—for a bit. Luxo snapped, and one night I noticed her chasing around the poor firefish. The firefish was faster though. Then the firefish disappeared. At first I checked the sump, then the floor, then concluded that it was finished off. It sucked, but I suppose I’d have to stick with three happy fish. Or two…
After coming back from a weekend trip, I noticed the obvious absence of my royal gramma. Instead, there was a fat clownfish proudly swimming across its tank, surveying its whole territory. It no longer hosted the torch too much. The world was its torch coral! At the time, I didn’t really believe that the rapid deaths of my firefish and royal gramma were the clown’s fault. In fact, I assumed that once more, there was a disease outbreak. Thus, I netted an angry Luxo and stuck her into a quarantine tank. The goby was too difficult to catch, and at this point I was making plans to upgrade my tank.
Over a month later, nothing showed up on the goby, and I grew suspicious that Luxo was the actual disease within the tank…
These suspicions grew when I upgraded the tank, and was finally able to catch the goby and put her into the quarantine tank with Luxo. Not within two hours, I checked in on the fish and found Luxo angrily swimming around, with a completely shredded up goby. My initial reaction was “oh, God, she did it again,” and at this point knew that she murdered every other fish, all behind my back. But this time, I got her!! Fortunately, the goby was still alive, though definitely shaken up. I decided to skip quarantining the goby and gave her a nice home in the 40 breeder. Sadly, she now has a very screwed up tail with no signs of healing.
So, I believe I learned my lesson to never trust a clownfish. Or, at least this one. At the moment, I have no intention of moving Luxo into the larger tank, but I also can’t get rid of her. It’s weird—as evil as she is, she’s still my little clownfish friend! After all, she is my profile pic!! So for now, it’s fishy jail for Luxo! Bad clownfish, bad!!
I hope you enjoyed my little story, and I hope I taught a valuable lesson to anyone who thinks clownfish are fun, friendly, and cute. Spoiler alert, they ain’t…
. But I love that you treat them like a part of the family you tolerate because you love them.
I’ve also found white dominant occelaris clowns to be peaceful. Again, this could be coincidence but I’ve looked after 4-5 morphs of occelaris, orange and white dominant clowns were the most peaceful, black werent peaceful. I love the unusual look of my black photon but the aggression that comes with them isn’t great (Not bad but not great either).
