Clown bit me!

R

RBirns

Member
They say you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you...

My percula (one year in tank) keeps biting my hand every time I reach into the tank. I have to catch and remove him just to clean every week. Is this aggression or is he just assuming I have food? Any suggestions?
 
lol...normal for a clown.

When I'm cleaning near the area my maroons have claimed, my hand is constantly getting rammed by the female.
 
Clowns can be a real pita I've had them draw blood before. I had a pair of fire clowns that would wait for me to try to stick my hand in and jump out of the water trying to nab me. All of my maintence was done with two hands one to clean with and the other to flip them. After I'd connect a couple times they'd back off until the next time
 
RBirns said:
They say you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you...

My percula (one year in tank) keeps biting my hand every time I reach into the tank. I have to catch and remove him just to clean every week. Is this aggression or is he just assuming I have food? Any suggestions?
Click to expand...


I definitely would not catch and remove the clown weekly to clean the tank. Very stressful on the fish and could easily have a mishap where the clown gets hurt or killed. As indicated above, this is very normal behavior from your clown and will likely never abate. A simple and less stressful solution for your clown is to invest in a pair of rubber gloves. This will protect your hands and be far less harsh on the clown.
 
I have a single female perc that is very docile. She just hangs in her nem while I do tank cleaning. Years ago I had a clarkii that bit me every time I put my hand in the tank.
 
My black female bites me if I get too close in the main tank, My Orange O female bites me whenever my hand is in her tank as well. I had a female Perc that jumped out of the water trying to get my hand twice! Its normal territorial behavior.
 
it isn't strange, it is normal as mentioned already. You are invading it's territory and it is defending it. The other fish are incorperated in the territory already, there probably is some aggression but nothing major.
 
My mated/egglaying Occelaris pair are defensive but they won't attack my hand if I am working in the tank. But... as soon as I put the scraper in to get at the coralline on the glass. Forget it. The female tries to bat the scraper. No fear what so ever.
 
Wear a pair of exam gloves. That's what I do when I need to do something. The female consistently draws blood if I don't. She'll attack me one time with the gloves on, then stop.
 
Nemo isn't as nice as kids think :lol2: I had a b/w pair that would keep biting so i would have to push them away with a net as i cleaned
 
Now I consider myself lucky. Mine bites but has never drawn blood. It gets super annoying when i put a coral down the female will knock it over. She's even done it with smaller rocks on the starboard that she doesn't like.
 
lol I got some laughs from this, the clowns I had years ago never did that, but the yellow tang I had always try to perform surgery on my arm :p
 
GhostCon1, my Hepatus always tries to slice my hand when I reach the tank... it´s very agressive too. Generaly, marine animals are veeery territorialists and agressive.
 
luis, the wierd thing was, it took that tang 3 months to start doing that. And he wasn't aggressive to anything else in the tank at all. First time he started to do it scared the crap out of me!
 
Well, the 3 months was the necesseray time to your Tang got the feeling that it was the "owner" of the tank, rocks, food, etc.. so, anything else would sound like an intruder trying to take its place and food, so let´s protect our home! :fun5:
 
My female perc leaves me alone, for about 5-7 seconds, If I dont have food for her, she gets ****ed and bites me, the whole time I have my hand in the tank. She doesnt really hurt, but it pinches, and its annoying after a few minutes. Its like in a cartoon, when the robber throws the pitbull a steak before jumping over the fence!
 
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