clownfish eating xenia?

[alozano]

Hi everybody,

I have a couple of young ocellaris in my tank. The tank has a large amount of xenia growing in it, mostly pulsing xenia elongata (I believe).You can see a pic here.

Now, I believe I have seen one of the ocellaris (the female) bite the xenia and eat parts of it. I thought I had seen it before but was never sure until yesterday, when I saw the female approach the xenia and bite off a little new-born arm of the xenia and eat it (or so it seemed to me!). I did notice too that the tummy of the ocellaris was quite bulky even though I had not fed them yet that day.

So my question is, have other people seen anything like this? Is it possible that the ocellaris is actually picking at the xenia?

By the way, if it is true that the ocellaris are biting the xenia, I can only be happy, because I do have a lot of xenia, which I will have to start cutting at some point!

Alvaro

 

[MarksReef]

I have read many posts (and have seen it myself) where the clown suck on there host but not eat it.

 

[crp]

Someone is eating my xenia too. I've never seen anyone do it so I assumed it was my foxface. I have two clowns (not sure if they are percs or oscellaris). Maybe its them.

Carrie

 

[captain7359]

when my valmingi tang is hungry and feels like showing me so he will go over to some xenia and rip off a head, sometimes spitting it out, sometimes eating it. sometimes i tease him with the can of food just so he goes and trashes more xenia.

 

[alozano]

It definitely looked like the clown was strongly biting the xenia when I saw it, not sucking. They double-host in my aquarium. They host a hairy mushroom during the day and the red sea xenia at night.

Alvaro