Need help

[Steve W]

For those of you at the meeting last night, you know that planejane gave me her lawnmower blenny. I introduced her into the tank last night and there didn't seem to be any problems and there still isn't with the blenny, but the larger of my two maroon clowns started attacking the smaller one this afternoon. At first it was just an occasional nip, then she turned violent and started chasing him all over the tank and shredding his fins until within 30 minutes he was lying on the bottom gasping and she was closing in for the kill. Now these two have been happily co-existing for two weeks and actually seemed attached.

I have (after a real struggle which disrupted the whole tank) removed both of them from the general tank. He seems to be recovering in his quarentine tank, and she is trying to attack anything that comes near hers.

Any suggestions to help stablize my community? Would not like to loose any of my fish if I can help it but something has to give. HELP!

 

[cee]

Maroon clowns are notoriously nasty. Sometimes if you can remove them both or significantly change up the LR the maroon won't have a sense of "home" and the territorial behavior may stop. If that's not feasible you'll have to make some decisions. However, chances are once the maroon is established again you'll encounter similar behavior when you add a new fish. Good luck.

The other thing I used when I kept maroons is a host anemone. Anyone near the anemone and the aggression began but if the fish stayed clear all was well.

 

[planejane]

Steve, so sorry to hear your female maroon didn't like having her space invaded. Isn't it weird that she's taking it out on the male, I wonder if her made a "pass" at Maybalene and she got jealous.
I remember reading about a similar problem that a guy had with his maroon, and he caught it and put it into a small cage like thing in the tank to separate her from the rest for a few days while the new addition established itself. "They" say any aggressive fish should be the last one introduced into the tank to lessen the chances of this happening, so I guess puting it in a separate tank or a cage would have the same effect. It's good that the male seems to be recovering, and maybe with a "time out" the female will have an attitude adjustment, but, as Cee mentioned, you may want to rethink your stocking plan in your big tank and have a small one just for the clowns.
Sure hope it works out for you. If you need to remove Maybalene I certainly would take her back. But, in my opinion, the blenny is a much more interesting and personable fish.

 

[Steve W]

Thanks, planejane. Right now we have both of them in quarentine and I think we are going to take this opportunity to completely clean and reorganize the tank before we reintroduce either of the clowns. Then I think we are going to take your advice and put the little male back first and give him a week or so to heal before we try reintroducing the female. I like Mabaline and want to keep her, the female clown is just going to realize that she isn't the biggest fish in this tank - I am.

Steve W

 

[Engloid]

the female clown is just going to realize that she isn't the biggest fish in this tank - I am.

I know that mine don't give up no matter how much I try and show them I'm the boss. I have actually taken a 4" net, held it by the net side and whacked them with the handle end. You can't move the net end under water fast enough to get near them, so I turned it around. I'm not trying to abuse them, but just thought maybe if I whacked them once they'd stop...and they didn't. They keep coming at me. I am sometimes safe if I'm putting my hand in at the other end of the tank, but on their end, they are all over me until I get out of their area.

 

[Spongie]

Clown fish in general are notoriously territorial. Admit it, we all saw how Marlin took on that giant eel in Finding Nemo...I mean what was he thinking. But seriously Maroons are pretty much the meanest Clown you can buy. I am pretty sure that even if she is the very last fish introduced and she has plenty of room there is still a good chance that she will pick on at least a few other fish. Keeping her fed well might help a little bit, an anemone might help also, other than that though I don't think there are any sure fire ways to keep her from picking on her boyfriend. I wish I had better advice on this one but I would have to say either keep the other fish to a minimum or find a home for the maroons and pick up some Pink Skunks or Perculas.

 

[omreardon]

I'm not sure but I don't think a 24 gallon tank is going to be big enough for 2 maroon clowns, much less anything else. The minimum tank size for one is 30 gallons and they can get up to 6 inches long. Even if they are small now they will grow quickly and the aggression gets worse and worse.

I would return the maroons and get a pair of perculas. There are several different pattern and color morphs if you are looking for something that looks different from the traditional nemos.

 

[Engloid]

I've got Ocellaris, and they haven't really been much of a problem. They're not known for hosting as well as others, but mine took to a couple hairy mushrooms pretty well.

 

[bluestarfish]

Aside from certain species being picky about tank mates, each fish has it's own individual quirks. By general rule of thumb I shouldn't have percs, occ and a tomato clown in the same tank but they all get along and actually shoal together quite a bit.

 

[DevinWolfe]

Ha, kind of reminds me of my occ. She is HATEFUL to me, but leaves everything else in the tank alone, including a gramma that was introduced well after her. She also leaves her little boyfriend alone too.

 

[Steve W]

Reintroduced the female tonight - so far so good. She is still picking on him a little, but she is not trying to kill him, just put him in his place. I'm guardedly hopeful it will work out.