my clownfish are fiesty

[soniayazdi]

So I around two weeks ago I added a cleaner shrimp to my tank, it's nice and cute and whenever my hands in the tank it'll come and clean it and my fish seemed to have no problem with it. I have two clowns in the tank who I've never had any trouble with before, but the other day I noticed quite a bit of bubble algae on my live rock so I went in with some tweezers to try and remove a good amount, as usual my shrimp came by, and my female clown just went at my hand! She started biting at my ring then at my fingers. I've read about this before and it doesn't hurt or anything but is there any way to stop this? Whenever my hand comes around the top of the tank she darts up there ready to bite, not that I put my hand in the tank often but when I'm trying to get to something or do some work on it it's pretty annoying. So yeah any way I could get her back to that peaceful state she was in before?

 

[themcnertney]

Typical clown behavior. Not much can be done.

 

[p7willm]

Clowns are territorial and will defend their territory against ANY intruder, like you. Other fish are really laid back and don't care about a territory. Still others have a feeding territory and will defend that against anything that might eat it's food, usually a fish of the same species, but will be tolerant of fish that it does not think will eat it's food.

The only way to stop a clown from attacking you is to stay out of it's territory.

 

[iLLwiLL]

Every clown I've ever had has had that exact behavior. Its kinda funny when its a small perc or two doing it, but when a 5-6" female maroon grabs onto your knuckle every time you put your hand in it gets old pretty fast.

 

[p7willm]

I used to dive, loved it and one of the reasons I want a reef in my living room, and it was fun to dive with the fish. I like to think they knew they were much faster and agile them me so they would swim around without giving me a second thought. Even got cleaned when I held still in the proper attitude on a cleaner station. Except the damsel fish.

A little fish. A couple of inches long. Less than a pound. Me. 6' and over 200 lbs. plus equipment. Get in his territory and he would attack. Little tiny fish willing to attack something hundreds of time his size. If they were bigger we could not dive.

 

[soniayazdi]

Ahaha thanks everyone for responding to this I guess I have to get used to my fiesty clowns, the determination is admirable to be honest

 

[Purpletank]

My do this off and on. I figured they may be protecting a nest full of eggs especially if it is the female attacking.

 

[ReefToLive1]

My goldstripe maroons are the same way.. Just have to be quick

 

[john.m.cole3]

I had this problem w/ my female percula. One day I decided to remove my sand bed. I removed the sand bed in my 46 over the course of a month with daily removal of small amounts (1 red solo cup per day, lol). I had to rearrange the rock work about once a week and I noticed the nipping went away. Lucky me, right? Well the aggression built back up but wasn't quite as bad. Then we moved across town and broke the tank down and re-scaped it upon setting it back up. No more nipping. What I learned was that re-arranging your rock work will break up the territory the clowns once claimed as theirs. Move around some rocks this weekend and let us know if that helps

 

[soniayazdi]

@john.m.cole3 wow thats interesting I'll definitely give that a try I've been meaning to rearrange lately anyway!

 

[john.m.cole3]

Good deal. Keep me updated if this works for you! Have a good one.

 

[Tahoe61]

Cheryl's Clown Story:

While working in my tank, my female clown latched on to my hand. My hand flew out of the tank with clown attached. She was propelled to the wall and slid down the wall and a behind couch. No one else was home so it took me about 3 min to move the couch and retrieve her and she was a huge dust bunny. She went on to live a great life and I went on to remove her every time I worked on the tank. She was easy to catch.

 

[soniayazdi]

@john.m.cole3 tried rearranging! And actually added another rock I recently bought, it's definitely a change. If anything maybe the nipping has gone down a bit so its not just a constant attack on my fingers but still happening lol thanks for the tip though!

 

[john.m.cole3]

thanks for the update. Try another re-arrange in a month . how big is the tank?

 

[soniayazdi]

@john.m.cole3 25 gallon, pretty small so I can see how they would consider the whole tank their "territory" haha

 

[john.m.cole3]

@john.m.cole3 25 gallon, pretty small so I can see how they would consider the whole tank their "territory" haha

That's where I was going