Why do all my fish hate my flame hawk?

125mph · Nov 13, 2024

I introduced a 3" flame hawk to the DT along with an acchilles tang and a whitetail tang. They all went through QT.

Well, the flame hawk is doing the worst. Looks like every fish is bullying the flame. All the tangs hate him (blue tang, purple tang) and the whitetail and acchiles all hate the flame hawk. Even my clownfish is chasing out the flame hawk. He has no rock he can perch on without being chased by a fish. The hawk is about as big as all the other fish with exception off the whitetail which is close to 4".

I thought hawkfish were tough fish? Now he stop eating for about 3 days.. Hope he can fend for himself.

Cheese Griller · Nov 14, 2024

125mph said:
I introduced a 3" flame hawk to the DT along with an acchilles tang and a whitetail tang. They all went through QT.

Well, the flame hawk is doing the worst. Looks like every fish is bullying the flame. All the tangs hate him (blue tang, purple tang) and the whitetail and acchiles all hate the flame hawk. Even my clownfish is chasing out the flame hawk. He has no rock he can perch on without being chased by a fish. The hawk is about as big as all the other fish with exception off the whitetail which is close to 4".

I thought hawkfish were tough fish? Now he stop eating for about 3 days.. Hope he can fend for himself.

If possible remove and put in an acclimation box. Hawfish are tough, but there’s only so much they can endure. As far as to why the other fish hate it, honestly there’s no way to tell. It also could just be a new & novel thing for a fish to be perching like it does so the fish are inclined to check it out and harass it

125mph · Nov 14, 2024

Tried to catch him to put in acclimation box but he is deceptively fast lol... Will have to hope he can hold his own and just get used to it.. He's not getting nipped at... just chased around and he seems not be the chaser for any fish... Food is dropping right around him and he looks at it hard but just not eating it.

Cheese Griller · Nov 14, 2024

125mph said:
Tried to catch him to put in acclimation box but he is deceptively fast lol... Will have to hope he can hold his own and just get used to it.. He's not getting nipped at... just chased around and he seems not be the chaser for any fish... Food is dropping right around him and he looks at it hard but just not eating it.

Hopefully he'll begin to eat once things settle down with the other fish. In the meantime, you can try to distract the other fish with the mirror trick to give them something else to chase!