Nigripes: female looks great, male not so much

[velvetelvis]

I bought a pair of SA-bred nigripes clowns about 3 weeks ago from my LFS. They settled in right away and seemed to do well, though they became more skittish over time. I'm not so surprised by that, though, since they're from the skunk complex. They don't have a full-fledged light over the tank yet (I'm having a custom LED fixture built for me, which has taken longer than anticipated)--I don't know if that might be causing their shyness.

Anyway...the female is doing fine. She eats well and is nice and thick; she even looks like she's grown a little bit. But the male seems to be on the decline. In the past few days, I've noticed him hiding in the back of the tank. He no longer seems interested in food. He doesn't have anything that would point to an obvious cause, such as labored breathing, red streaks, tattered fins, etc. He just hides and doesn't eat.

I haven't noticed the female picking on him, though they are spending more time apart than at first. They still sleep close to each other at night. In fact, last night the male was lying on his side and his mate was hovering close over him.

Water parameters are: SG 1.025; KH 8, Ca >400 (it's off the chart for my test kit); temp. 78F; ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates all zero (I don't have a test kit for phosphate). The tank has been cycled since early December. I have a 10-12G sump/refugium with tons of chaeto and an NAC 3.5 skimmer. Everything else in the tank, including the female, appears to be thriving.

They were housed with wild-caught fish at the LFS. Could he possibly have been exposed to something? But why wouldn't the female be sick as well? This is so frustrating. I know nigripes are infamous for being touchy, but they appeared to be in perfect condition when I brought them home.

 

[tvrsir]

Quarantine and copper treatment.

 

[velvetelvis]

On the advice of the proprietor at my LFS, I isolated the male from the female last night. I got a good look at him and he looks fine, if a little thinner than the female. When I left for work this morning, they were both behaving normally again: the male was swimming upright in his isolation container instead of lying on his side, and the female was hanging out in the rocks and poked her head out to look at me, instead of hiding. Maybe it was aggression after all? It's possible that they can intimidate each other through all kinds of signals that humans might not recognize, such as pheromones or sounds (don't laugh, I've heard pink skunks chatter at each other!). I wonder if stress may have also caused the skittish behavior.

I'm trading the male in at the LFS tonight. Assuming the female continues to do well, I'll have them order me a small juvenile from SA, and also a fangblenny (maybe a dither fish will help) sometime next week.

 

[Clownfishfan]

Maybe the male was on it's way to be a femaleand thats why the female attacked him?Could we see a pic?

 

[velvetelvis]

I wondered the same myself...sorry, no pics though--s/he's already back at the LFS! They are nearly the same size and the (full-fledged) female was picking on the other one pretty bad at the store when they came in, but they seemed to settle down after a day or two. But you may be on to something.

I'm still going to try and pair her, but I'll make sure the next prospective mate is much smaller. Once my tank is ready, I also want to get a BTA clone for them. As closely as my female sticks to her favorite spot in the rockwork, I think she might appreciate a host.