Please Help. Clowns just about killed my tang

[Eagle_Steve]

For no reason whatsoever while feeding my clowns tonight, the shot 5 feet across the tank and went straight crazy on my yellow tang, and no food was over near it. Its top fin is missing a good chunk now and it just wants to lay on its side and is breathing heavy. I have it in my fuge now and have slowed the flow down to let it rest, but wondering if there is anything I can do to help it. I know that usually a fish laying on its side is a bad thing. I have a silicone net that won’t hang on it’s “spurs” (what I call them) and could place it in that to help keep it upright. Would that help, or is it just wait it out and pray? Just really weird as they have gotten along for a while now and the tang was one of the first in the tank. He wasn’t even by their carpet nem, so it makes no sense to me why they would go after it like that. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I’d keep it low stress as possible and hope. So no net.

#reefsquad.

 

[Robink]

I agree, the net would stress him more. Doesn't sound like the tank is too small if it's 5 feet long. Any other fish in the tank?

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Well, “nanner” didn’t make it. After looking, they got a good chunk from its belly area. This sucks as I was thinking of adding some more tank mates, but after this I am worried.

 

[Justfebreezeit]

maybe they spawned? check for eggs?

That sucks though, I know i would be disheartened.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

I agree, the net would stress him more. Doesn't sound like the tank is too small if it's 5 feet long. Any other fish in the tank?

I have 2 engineer gobys, pair of mated clowns, mandarin, 6 line wrasse, pink spot goby and a diamond goby.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

maybe they spawned? check for eggs?

That sucks though, I know i would be disheartened.

No eggs. So no idea. Now to explain to the kids how Nemo is evil.

 

[Flippers4pups]

How big is your tank? What type of clowns are they?

 

[Eagle_Steve]

110 gallon. The female is an orange ocellaris the male is a yellow ocellaris. They are both about 5 years old. They do spawn a lot, but always by the rock behind their nem. (Right side of tank). The yellow tang swam the whole tank of course, but has always went high when on that side. (Nem is on the bottom buried in the sand). This happened on the left side of the tank and the tang was just picking at a rock below a Kenya tree. Not sure how they even saw him.

 

[Flippers4pups]

110 gallon. The female is an orange ocellaris the male is a yellow ocellaris. They are both about 5 years old. They do spawn a lot, but always by the rock behind their nem. (Right side of tank). The yellow tang swam the whole tank of course, but has always went high when on that side. (Nem is on the bottom buried in the sand). This happened on the left side of the tank and the tang was just picking at a rock below a Kenya tree. Not sure how they even saw him.

Okay, how big was the Tang? Surprised the tang didn't hold its ground.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

How big is your tank? What type of clowns are they?

Both are

Okay, how big was the Tang? Surprised the tang didn't hold its ground.

3 inches or a little more. About the same size as the male clown, and slightly smaller then the female clown.

 

[Flexin]

Sorry to hear about your loss. You may need to get a bigger one if you want to keep them. Big enough to hold the female at bay. I noticed if any fish backs down at any point from my clowns, I have to remove them from the tank.

I can't even get emerald crabs near their spawning area to deal with the bubble algae...

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Sorry to hear about your loss. You may need to get a bigger one if you want to keep them. Big enough to hold the female at bay. I noticed if any fish backs down at any point from my clowns, I have to remove them from the tank.

I can't even get emerald crabs near their spawning area to deal with the bubble algae...

I would love to have another yellow tang. It’s weird as it was in there for 9 months, the clowns 6 and now they have a beat down on the tang. I know fish do odd things. I have only been in saltwater for a year now, but have had lots of aggressive and docile fresh water fish for years. This is something I have never heard of though. From all I find, tangs are usually the bullies. Either way, this is defiantly making me rethink another post I have out there about adding some tank mates. Maybe the clowns read the post on the nem net and got angry. Defiantly going to have to think this out about adding fish, as they just killed something that has been there longer than them.

 

[Fudsey]

Clowns are EVIL ! ! !

 

[Cment]

Clowns can be real jerks the older they get. I had to remove my pair and put them in a small cube alone with no other fish. I turned it into a nem tank with the clowns bc the wife didn't want me to get rid of them.

 

[cmcoker]

Clowns can be real jerks the older they get. I had to remove my pair and put them in a small cube alone with no other fish. I turned it into a nem tank with the clowns bc the wife didn't want me to get rid of them.

This. Exactly what I did, except no anenomes it's a GHA tank lol

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Clowns can be real jerks the older they get. I had to remove my pair and put them in a small cube alone with no other fish. I turned it into a nem tank with the clowns bc the wife didn't want me to get rid of them.

My wife just suggested I turn my QT tank (jbj 29) into a tank for them and put their carpet nem in there. The carpet nem is 10” so not sure how that’s gonna work. Defiantly would be a task as the QT has not had fish in it for months. At least it’s still active and has been taken care of, but that’s a huge bioload to add and my nem is a blue carpet, so not cheap.

 

[Fudsey]

You could plumb it into your main display giving you the benefit of the main tank's filtration... Just a thought

 

[Eagle_Steve]

You could plumb it into your main display giving you the benefit of the main tank's filtration... Just a thought

I have a 40 sump with a ton of cheato and pods. They could be sump fish lol

 

[Flexin]

I would love to have another yellow tang. It’s weird as it was in there for 9 months, the clowns 6 and now they have a beat down on the tang. I know fish do odd things. I have only been in saltwater for a year now, but have had lots of aggressive and docile fresh water fish for years. This is something I have never heard of though. From all I find, tangs are usually the bullies. Either way, this is defiantly making me rethink another post I have out there about adding some tank mates. Maybe the clowns read the post on the nem net and got angry. Defiantly going to have to think this out about adding fish, as they just killed something that has been there longer than them.

Adding fish is difficult. I added a yellow flanked wrasse, beautiful fish to my 65 with two frost bite clowns, blue dot jawfish, hawkfish, tomini tang (all very small). The wrasse terrorized all of them. If any fish got to food it targeted, they were the target for the day. And I would feed heavy. I thought it would calm down but no luck. It really was a beautiful fish. Found him a home with larger fish and now it is doing well. I got luck I caught it... It stressed out my jawfish of course who died shortly after I caught the wrasse. Losses are hard..