Bad news for my clarkii

[dantodd]

I dont' know what happened. He has turned into a total brute. He has nearly killed her. I left the room for 15 minutes and when I came back her fins were totally shredded and she was gasping at the top of the tank. She is now in the sump until I can setup the QT tank.

Damn, this is really sad.

I grabbed some video of the aggression. The first is when he first came over and "found" her in the BTA. This is a BTA that they never hosted when they were a couple and it is about 12 or 14" inches across. That is a Seio 820 in the background.... These are NOT small fish.

First attack

The second video is when they were both in the anemone and he was finishing off tossing her out. Some pretty brutal fighting going on.

Anemone takeover

I am beginning to suspect that he has decided he is now a she. I know it is supposed to be rare but I can't think of anything else that would cause this to happen.

Any input from the experts out there?

 

[graveyardworm]

I could be wrong but I believe ( atleast in my case ) its the female who's more aggressive. When i first moved mine into their new tank with an anemone the female became very aggressive, and beat the crap out of the male, but after that first day they seem to be much better like they've reached an understanding.

 

[graveyardworm]

Sorry just noticed your other thread so I guess you've got it figured out, to bad about the pop eye it looks really nasty. Maybe the male sees her as damaged goods and is going to take over as female.

 

[stykthyn]

clarkii's are odd. In wilkeson's book she says that in Clarkii clown pairs sometimes the male will become female in the presence of a dominant female and will then take a 3rd party male. I have never seen it happen, but apparently some others have. maybe this is what happened to you.

 

[dantodd]

I read that too and it is what I fear happened. But in those cases she describes them as being OK together but just not breeding, even willing to share a male. I'm hoping he just decided to beat on her because she was stressed.

Even if that is the case he's probably turning as we speak. I wish I knew more about how long I have to nurse her back to health and reintroduce her before he makes it to the point of no return.