my fish stay in the corner..why?

[Octoberfest]

For some reason my two prec. clowns stay in the left rear corner of my tank. The yellow tang joins them most of the time but not always. My yellow tailed damsel will sometimes go in there as well but not always. What I don't understand is I have a 6 foot tank and for some reason all the fish seem to want to stay on the left side of the than, RARELY using the right side at all. I've seen other people's tanks where the fish are constantly swimming, but not mine. I'm wondering if it's my set-up or just crazy fish.

Here is how I'm set-up. All of my live rock is piled in the middle of my tank, the highest point is about half way up the tank in the center and goes down from there with about 12" of open space on the right and 18" on the left (only substrate no live rock). I have a heater in the left hand corner about 6 inches from the corner and a heater in the center of the tank. I have a Rio 1700 on the left side of the tank in the back corner. On the right side of the tank I have a Seio (can't remember the size right now) pump in the bottom rear corner and my Coralife 125skimmer is abover that in the same corner. I aslo have to hang on external filter with no filter elements that I'm just using for surface water flow only one on each side. I also have even lighting on both sides.

If it helps the clownfish sleep in this corner and have dug a little pit in the substrate in the same corner as well. At first I was wondering if it was a nest and they were laying eggs but they don't gaurd it from the Tang at all.

 

[DJM32189]

They are probably acclimating to the tank and are a little nervous. Clownfish themselves do not typically roam around a large area, but instead pick a spot and generally stay there. Eventually, the clown will come out more. It may help if there is more LR, corals, plants, caves etc. to make the fish feel more at home and secure/safe.

 

[Octoberfest]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6616282#post6616282 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DJM32189
They are probably acclimating to the tank and are a little nervous. Clownfish themselves do not typically roam around a large area, but instead pick a spot and generally stay there. Eventually, the clown will come out more. It may help if there is more LR, corals, plants, caves etc. to make the fish feel more at home and secure/safe.

They've been in there for a couple of months now. The smaller of the two will come to the center of the tank and attack my hand when I put the sea-weed in the lettuce clip for the tang though.

 

[oyam123]

sounds normal to me.

 

[dchao]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6616282#post6616282 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DJM32189
Clownfish themselves do not typically roam around a large area, but instead pick a spot and generally stay there.

I second that, but YT should not hang out with them all the time. YT is quite a shy fish, does your YT swimming in the full length of the tank when you are not staring at him?

 

[supertech3]

by reading your tank desription it sounds like you have a good amount of water flow at the left side, they may like that side because of this and the way the rock is arranged with this flow. How does the flow in your tank look? I run three of the seio's, 1 820gph on left and right side and a 620gph in center.

 

[Octoberfest]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6616430#post6616430 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dchao
I second that, but YT should not hang out with them all the time. YT is quite a shy fish, does your YT swimming in the full length of the tank when you are not staring at him?

Yeah the yellow tang will swim around the whole tank from time to time, I'm just saying on average it's in the corner. He's the newest addition so maybe it's just when I'm in the room and he's still nervous or something, I don't know.

 

[Octoberfest]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6616698#post6616698 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by supertech3
by reading your tank desription it sounds like you have a good amount of water flow at the left side, they may like that side because of this and the way the rock is arranged with this flow. How does the flow in your tank look? I run three of the seio's, 1 820gph on left and right side and a 620gph in center.

I have the Rio1700 on the left side, it's in the back corner and the outlet is about 14" off the top of the substrate pointed toward the back/center of the tank. I have the fan nozzle (not sure if that's what you call it) that allows you to adjust the flow coming out and it seems like it would spready the volume out a bit attached to the outlet as well. I also have a Penguin 400 hang on filter on the back of the tank. Like I said it's only there to creat flow on the top of the water and I don't have the filters in it, just water flow.

On the right side of the tank I have a Seio 820 pump. It's on the bottom of the tank and the nozzle is about 4 inches off the top of the substrate. It's pointed toward the front/center of the tank. I also have a Emporer 350 Hang on filter, again with no elements just for water flow, on the right side of the tank. The Protein Skimmer doesn't make any flow, just some water disruption at the top but that's it.

The Rio is pointing the flow over the top of the live rock for the most part, and hits the backside as well, but I have the rock actually up against the tank on the back wall (not sure how smart that is...lol). The Seio is aimed in front of the rock and and down low.

To me it seems as though the water flow is about equal on both sides of the tank, not to mention the clowns hang out behind the Rio, not in the water flow.

 

[cgk29]

Could it be some voltage leaking on the side of the tank the fish do not frequent?