How do clown fish taste?

[jarrod13]

My roommate always teases me he's going to make sushi one night out of my fish, and every time I get a new fish he says "ooo new sushi flavor!"

 

[BrianZ]

I feel your pain. Literally lol! Ok so it really doesn't hurt much even though my clown tries to find the most sensitive part of my hand to nip. I hate it when I'm trying to delicately glue down a frag. One of my clowns will distract me by systematically attacking the exposed webbing in between my fingers while my cleaner shrimp sneaks up from another angle and starts eating my flesh.

 

[worm5406]

They are working like a finely oiled team. Don't you have the cow prod handy to just shock the tank and put them back into submission? I mean you are on THEIR territory.

 

[Allmost]

bite it back.

 

[reefriot13]

My black and whites do that to me all the time. The males the jackass, female trys to shimmy in between my fingers and the male flat out bites. First time I had a softball size rock and banged the front of the tank it startled me so much. Starry blennie does the same thing but he will come outta his hole and bite me once and run back to his hole. Little chicken ****! I now use a lazer pointer and keeps them busy while I pick up knocked over frags or such

Sent from my MB611

 

[elegance coral]

Back in the day my clowns would bite me too. I got tired of it and changed the way I deal with them. These fish are smarter than many people give them credit for. They can learn and are trainable. I've had many clowns over the years. Right now I have 8 clowns. 4 perculas, 2 clarkii's, 1 very large maroon, and a saddle back. Some of these fish I've had for years. Probably more than a decade for the maroon, and I can pet her. None of these fish bite.

Clowns bite because they see us as a threat. The only way, I know of, to change this behavior is to convince them that we are not a threat. If they charge and we swoosh them away, or hit them with feeding tongs, we're just emphasizing the point that we are a threat. Like kids teasing a dog. We'll simply make matters worse.

It's much harder to change this behavior once it starts, than it is to prevent it in the first place.

All of my clowns have been hand fed. I make it a point to put my hands in their territory on a regular basis. I don't make any threatening moves towards them. They grow accustom to my hands being in the tank, and don't see me as a threat.

When I first put my hand in the tank, my clowns will come up to see if I have food. Occasionally, the maroon will nip my fingers as if she's looking for food. This doesn't hurt and is nothing like the aggressive territorial attacks that clowns are capable of. Once she realizes I don't have food, she allows me to go about my business as she goes back to her territory and hangs out.

At the beginning of this video, from back in 2008, you can see my maroon go to the surface as I put my hand in the tank. She nips my finger, I tell her I don't have any food, (as if she can understand English :wildone then she goes right back to her cave. As I move the rock into her cave, she gets out of my way, and watches what I'm doing from close by. Then after I remove my hand, she comes to the front glass to watch me, hoping I'm getting her food. When she realizes she's not getting fed, she proceeds to clean out her cave. At no time is she aggressive towards me.

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[PowerNap]

Lol. My dogs do the same thing to their food bowl!

Mr.saltz, I was waiting for someone to make the "they taste funny" reference.

I thought about feeding while I work, but I don't want to scare often more sheepish fish, then have a lot of food sitting on the bottom.