Struggling with keeping a pair of clownfish - What could I be doing wrong?

[djryan2000]

I've been in the hobby for a little over a year now, and I've had a revolving door of clownfish ever since.
I started off leaving a Petco with a tank, sand, live rock, salt, a dottyback, and an oscellaris clownfish. Boy, was I in for a ride.
A few months later I bought a second clown to pair, an orange storm. The oscellaris ruthlessly beat up my new orange storm so I brought oscellaris to my LFS and purchased a different, smaller oscellaris. These two paired and even spawned in my tank. Then it split open and all the fish went into a new tank. A month later the oscellaris died inexplicably. I thought he stopped eating from the stress of the tank split. I bought Wyoming white that ruthlessly attacked by an orange storm, so it got brought back. I purchased a tiny snowflake clown that I loved. He grew for the next four months until two days ago he inexplicably died too. It's unbelievably frustrating to only see a pet I bonded with die, but watching a beginner fish die in a tank filled with happy SPS corals that are growing and flourishing made it even worse. I went to my LFS and got a small oscellaris and impulsively put him in my DT (instead of my usual 2-month quarantine, couldn't explain why). Now he's pacing the tank eradically and not eating. Here's a video:


I tested the water parameters 3 days before the death and on the day of death. They were the same both days:
Alk - 8.9 dkH
Magnesium - 1380 ppm
Calcium 420 ppm
Phosphate - undetectable, but using salifert kit so I’m skeptical
Nitrate - 10 ppm
Salinity 1.026
pH - 8.15
Temp - 79 degrees F

Any ideas what I could be doing wrong? Besides the fish my dottyback killed, I've never had any other fish die on me and I'm at a loss of what to do. I'm wondering if I should bring both clowns to the LFS and get a new pair all together (and going through QT) as adding them one at a time is not working for me. TIA

 

[fishguy242]

hi,sorry to hear,seems like the other clown is not bother him at this point,looks like a lot of flow in tank,kinda new clown behavior,poss cut back flow and lights for a day hopefully he calms down if do end up replacing stick with your qtbest wishes ,any probs come back

 

[ichthyogeek]

So it sounds to me that the only thing you might have done wrong, is forget that clownfish can be aggressive to each other. Here's my suggestion: don't do anything right now. Offer frozen foods, get them up and running. If the clown still dies, here's what I recommend:

Stick the living clownfish in the quarantine tank. Buy a smaller clownfish. Put the two clownfish together through quarantine. Treat for inernal parasites/infections proactively. Ignore mild aggression. If it gets to the point that the smaller clownfish gets tattered fins, has bite marks, physically separate the two fish, but let them stay in eyesight of each other (some sort of plastic divider works well here).

Clownfish pairing can be brutal (and lethal). You typically don't see this with ocellaris/perculas though. But it can still happen.

 

[Plunder]

The first thing I thought is your flow seems really high. Have you tried turning it down a bit or turning off the wavemaker? I'd would give it a shot. Let us know.

 

[djryan2000]

The first thing I thought is your flow seems really high. Have you tried turning it down a bit or turning off the wavemaker? I'd would give it a shot. Let us know.

The little guy ate today!

The flow being really high is relatively new to my tank. The korallia unfortunately can not be turned down but the other pump can be a little bit. The tank has ~70x turnover for the corals but I’ve been wondering if it’s too much for the fish but the two people I’ve asked said they don’t mind or that it gives them exercise. Thank you!

 

[djryan2000]

Update: I just got home from work to find the new clownfish sucked into my powerhead headfirst. He ate when I fed him 10 hours ago and was acting completely normal just like the last one.

I put an anemone guard over this powerhead and then two days later the other clown died, I also came home to find him alive trapped and then trapped dead the next morning. I’m currently wondering if it’s the guard. I’m at a loss as to what else it could be - the corals are all happy, the other two fish are happy too. I don’t know what water parameter would cause fish death but not bother any of the sps corals my tank is filled with.
The day after I made this post he calmed down and was swimming with my other clown. I didn’t see much aggression between him and either the clownfish or my hawkfish. I’m at a loss as to how these beautiful creatures keep dying under my care.